The Pharmacist at Midnight

Arthur stood in the pharmacy aisle, clutching a bottle of B-complex vitamins like it might save him. It wouldn't. Nothing would. But his wife Elena had always been particular about these things—her voice echoing in his head: *Arthur, don't forget the B vitamins. For energy.*

Outside, lightning cracked the sky in half, the fluorescent lights flickering in response. Three months since her funeral, and he still caught himself buying the things she'd put on the shopping list. A habit that refused to die with her.

"Rough night?" A woman's voice behind him. He turned to find the pharmacist—late forties, tired eyes that had seen too much. Her name tag read MARIA.

"Storm's picking up," Arthur said, pulling his fedora lower. The hat had been Elena's father's, passed down at the funeral. Wearing it felt like carrying a ghost on his head.

Maria's gaze lingered on the vitamins. "My husband took those. Every morning. For thirty years." She paused, and Arthur saw it then—the same flatness in her eyes that he'd been living with. "Brain tumor took him in March."

The air between them shifted. Lightning struck again, closer this time, and the pharmacy's backup generator hummed to life.

"I'm sorry," Arthur said, and he meant it. The words felt inadequate, like throwing a pebble into the ocean.

"I still buy them," Maria confessed, her voice dropping to a whisper. "Every month. The vitamins, his favorite brand of coffee. It's stupid, right?"

"No," Arthur said. "It's not stupid."

They stood there in the flickering light, two strangers bound by grief and B-complex vitamins. For the first time in three months, Arthur didn't feel entirely alone in his particular brand of madness.

"You need anything else?" Maria asked, already reaching for the register key.

"No. This is enough."

Arthur paid and walked out into the storm, clutching his bottle of vitamins like a lifeline. The hat kept the rain off his face, but nothing could shield him from the truth: some days, just buying the things they would have wanted was the only way to keep moving forward.

Behind him, through the pharmacy window, he saw Maria watching him go. Lightning illuminated her face, and in that flash, he thought she might have been smiling.