When I Can't Sleep, I Write.

I just wrote this in about 30 minutes. No idea why I did, or what it's for, but here ya go.

Gulf View and Pier 26

On the corner where Gull View meets Pier 26, there is a little row of shops. No more than three or four; the number is not exact because one of the lots is for sale every other week. The buildings themselves are old and shabby, built of the same sooty red bricks. Each is two stories high, with three rectangular panes facing out onto the street. A narrow alleyway separates the Chinese takeaway on the corner from the other three lots, and that is where Joseph Chung's cats usually prowl at night.The others do not have a sea view, but are on Gull View, which runs perpendicular to the ocean instead. These buildings face the large wooden warehouses on the opposite side of street, which by all accounts are very similar to those on their side of Gull View. It's really not a very profitable position for a shop of any kind, as the only customers available tend to be fishermen and factory workers, and neither are particularly thrifty. The first shop after Joseph Chung's takeaway is, suitably, a fishing supplies store, run by a crabby old woman called Mrs Fedson, whose husband was killed in the First World War. Next to Fedson's Tackle Shop is a little bookstore, once whose front had been a very dark blue, but the paint had peeled with age, showing the red brick underneath. It is the only store on Gull View that has an awning: the white canvas gradually became the grey it is today, and the cats will sleep under it when it rains, which is often. The books on sale in the window hadn't changed for a good twenty years now, yet they were remarkably clean. This could be credited to the long hours of hard work given by the shopkeeper's assistant. The book shop's owner was hardly ever seen in the store, preferring to remain upstairs, where he is said to sit by the window and think, being such a remarkably clever man. The middle window on the second floor is always slightly open, from which a thin trail of smoke from his pipe can be seen at most times of the day. Instead, the store was managed by a thin, pale young man called Adler. Not very much was known about the boy: he had shown up on the gutters of Gull View four years ago with no family save a kitten in his pocket. He gave the kitten to Joseph Chung in exchange for a bag of prawn crackers later that day, before the owner of the bookshop offered him a job. Adler never bought the kitten back, and worked day and night cleaning, cataloguing and rearranging the books. Once he finishes, he will think of a better way to organize them and start again. Adler has not once spoken to anyone, serving his costumers in silence. He has luminous grey eyes and a mop of dull blonde hair, and usually wears a greying blue suit, no matter the weather. Today, like any other day, Adler stood behind the counter by the door, his long fingers laced together expectantly, waiting for a customer that would never come. Every now and then, he would twitch slightly, as if he had suddenly thought of something important to, but he never got around to doing it.