Church of the Mundane is a short story that explores the life of a clerk at a rest stop in New Hampshire. Florence, the main character, is a nineteen year old who endures the graveyard shift at this gas station. She spends hours every night waiting. Waiting for anything. This short story is meant to draw attention to the lack of attention people pay to individuals like Florence as well as the horrifying yet intriguingly mundane life of those who are bound to work in unfulfilling jobs for the majority of their lives. Chapter 1: Florence It had been four hundred and eighty-four days since she was hired at the Irving in Andover off of Exit 11. Four hundred and eighty-three days since the lights in the Irving sign above the gas prices went out. Three hundred and sixteen days since she became a full-time employee. Two hundred and sixteen days since that trucker cried in the bathroom for an entire morning. Two hundred and ninety-six days since her phone stopped receiving a signal at the station. One hundred and fifty-two days since a family of four tried to bring their Newfoundland into the store. Forty-six days since she was assigned the graveyard shift. Nine days since New Hampshire public schools were let out for summer vacation. Three days since the fire alarm inexplicably went off at 2:13 a.m.

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“Mom, where’d you leave the keys?” Florence checked the outside pocket of her father’s canvas backpack, suspended from a wooden peg. His overused hunting boots leaned against each other on the floor below.
“I didn’t use the car today,” she called to Florence from her perch on the musty living room couch while turning up the volume on the TV.
Florence exhaled violently then re-clasped the pockets of her father’s backpack. She turned to her right and opened the door leading to the garage. The garage door had been rolled up into the ceiling so the humid air of early July warmed the space. The black paint of the 1998 Jeep Cherokee reflected the light from houses across the street and appeared to glow in the shadows of the garage. The dim blue hue of the summer evening hid mosquitos that buzzed in Florence’s ears while she scanned the floor for keys her father may have dropped in his short trip from the car to the basement TV. She opened the passenger door to drop her backpack in the seat and found her father had left the keys in the ignition. Florence left her undersized purple L.L. Bean backpack, a token of her early childhood, on the floor in front of the passenger seat. Parts of the backpack were patched with duct tape, the adhesive beginning to seep out from the edges of the tape. She got into the car on the passenger’s side then shut the door and slid over the console to get to the driver’s side.
The driver’s seat was a few degrees warmer than the surrounding air. The backs of her thighs, coated in a thin layer of perspiration, stuck to the naugahyde. Unlike most cars well into their second decade, the Cherokee’s engine hummed as Florence turned the keys in the ignition. Her father’s radio station of choice, Country 102.9, was just audible as it leaked out of the speakers.
Florence pulled backwards out of the garage, not bothering to check behind her. Once she had cleared the sidewalk, she accelerated into the summer night and turned up the radio.
Florence seemed to breathe in the freedom of the road, thrive on it, though not in the contented air of most nineteen-year-olds. She inhaled the darkness, the acceleration, the crisp pines, the heat, like a last breath before diving into deep waters.
As Florence approached the on-ramp for Route 89 she began to push the speed limit further, already going fifteen miles per hour over the posted forty. The Cherokee’s engine never protested the aggression in Florence’s steering or acceleration. Florence liked to think the car enjoyed it as much as she did, soaking in the untainted exhilaration of recklessness. In that twenty-four-minute drive between Florence’s house and the Irving gas station off Exit 11, Florence felt more alive, more legitimate, more tangible, than any of the other one thousand four hundred and sixteen minutes in the day.
Florence and the Cherokee shot onto the highway going far faster than the posted speed limit, weaving around a family of four in a silver Prius with Massachusetts plates, probably on their way to their lake house.
Her time on the highway was short-lived, entering at Exit 9 and getting off at Exit 11. The trip on the highway was, in fact, unnecessary altogether. Florence knew it would be shorter to take the backroads into Andover.
She crossed over two lanes, barely looking behind her to check for cars approaching in her blind spots. Florence then took the turn onto Exit 11, her speed only decreasing slightly as she pulled the wheel sharply to the right.
The Irving station was six minutes off the highway, surrounded on three sides by woods that extended at least half a mile in each direction. Florence pulled into the parking lot, using the brake for the first time since she had left her driveway. She wedged her car into a makeshift parking spot, off the pavement on the pine-needle-littered dirt of the forest floor. Not bothering to roll up the windows, that were left open throughout the whole summer anyways, Florence twisted the keys towards her and pulled them out of the ignition. The sudden silence was bracing after the continuous growl of the wind circulating through the Cherokee. The only sound that carried through the humidity was Florence’s breath, now at its regular pace, and the ticking of the engine as it cooled.
Florence got out of the car, grabbing her backpack from the passenger seat floor. The backs of her sweat-coated thighs peeled off the naugahyde. She made her way towards the illuminated doors of the Irving station, haphazardly spilling light into the parking lot.
Florence paused before pushing open the door, remaining on the fringes of the light, invisible. She studied him for a moment. Jed, the recently hired teenager, was sitting behind the cash register on the left wall of the store. He held his phone in his right hand and dragged the filthy, uncut nails of his left hand across his forehead, simultaneously texting his mysterious internet-girlfriend and picking at the minefield of pimples that he had been growing since the seventh grade. His thumb hovered over his phone’s keypad, poised to respond to the next text message. Florence opened the door with her shoulder, keeping her eyes on Jed until he looked up from his phone.
“Hey,” Jed said as he closed his phone and entered his employee code into the computer to clock out. "The fire alarm went off again, like, half an hour ago."
“That’s exciting.” Florence dropped her backpack on the counter and crossed the store to get a Diet Red Bull from one of the drink coolers.
“I took the batteries out,” Jed crossed the store and stood behind Florence, he then inched his head closer to the right side of her face so his chapped lips were millimeters from Florence’s ear. “You’re gonna hafta watch for smoke.” Jed exhaled on her neck. Florence flinched at Jed’s stale breath. She elbowed him in the gut and he staggered back ward, pushing breath out through gritted teeth. He then swiveled on his heel to leave. He turned his head over his left shoulder at the door, his right hand holding it open. His sarcastically flirtatious smile contorted his features, making him look like a stray dog bearing his teeth.
Jed’s inappropriate advances had become a nightly occurrence. Florence was more pestered by them than intimidated
Florence slid the glass door open, the suction creating a vacuum and forcing her to use both hands. She squatted and picked a can from the bottom shelf. Florence returned to the counter and scanned the Red Bull at the register, swiping her employee identification card through the credit card scanner. She then turned her back to the counter, placed both palms on the red plastic behind her, and hopped onto the open space between the coupons for King Sized Reece’s Cups and the scanner gun. Folding her legs into a pretzel shape underneath her, Florence reached for her backpack and pulled it into her lap. She unzipped it and removed a battered copy of Swiss Family Robinson and a blue Sunapee Bank retractable pen she had been using to mark her page. She opened her Diet Red Bull then chugged the first half, leaving the other half to sip as she read.
One hour and forty-eight minutes passed. Florence rarely shifted her position. She read, writing notes in the margins of the pages and underlining phrases. Her Red Bull had run out fifty-six minutes ago.
Headlights signaled a car pulling into the parking lot. It stopped in front of the far right pump and the engine shut off. The headlights faded. Florence untangled her legs from underneath her and pushed herself off the counter onto the floor. She walked around the counter to sit behind the cash register, placing her pen inside her book to mark the page. The car had stopped under one of the overhead lights. The powder blue paint of the Ford pickup was chipping. The undercarriage of the truck was wearing away, eaten by rust. A man, Florence guessed to be in his fifties, opened the driver’s side door and inched his legs and torso out of his seat. This proved difficult as the man’s massive stomach was restrained by the steering wheel, pinning him to his seat. He swiped his credit card in the pump station once freed from his car and then began to pump gas into his truck. A petite woman, whose grey hair hung down to her narrow hips, got out of the passenger’s side and made her way to the doors of the station. She paused in the light next to the doors and removed a cigarette from between her lips, pinching it between her thumb and her index finger. The woman then extinguished it in the standing faux-stone ash tray next to the door. Her jeans, high waisted and poorly fitting, reminiscent of standard nineties fashion, swished between her thighs as she headed towards Florence.
“Hi,” Florence said.
“Hiya honey, you wouldn’t happen to have a box of camel lights back there would you?”
“Sure.”
The woman crossed to the rack of assorted jerky next to the register and grabbed a bag of beef teriyaki. From the shelves underneath the counter she took out a bag of Sour Patch Kids. She threw the two bags onto the counter, knocking over the pack of cigarettes Florence had placed neatly in the center of the counter.
“Will that be all?” Florence stated in her well-rehearsed “happy to help even at 1:26 am” tone of voice.
“Mhm,” said the woman, already reaching into the front pocket of her jeans for the cluster of folded ones and fives she had stored there.
“Eight, forty-nine,” Florence took the two five dollar bills from the woman’s extended hand and put them in the register drawer. She handed the woman back a bill, some coins, and a receipt. The woman dropped the coins in the clear container on the counter.
Florence smiled at the woman, her lips remained closed. The woman returned the smile and left, hopping into the truck her husband had finished filling. They left the station and Florence watched until the car lights had faded into the darkness.
Florence resumed her position on the counter, almost as if she had been uninterrupted by the woman’s arrival. She reopened her book and continued reading.

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It had been four hundred and eighty-five days since she was hired at the Irving in Andover off of Exit 11. Four hundred and eighty-four days since half of the lights in the Irving sign above the gas prices went out. Three hundred and seventeen days since she became a full-time employee. Two hundred and seventeen days since that trucker cried in the bathroom for an entire morning. Two hundred and ninety-seven days since her phone stopped receiving a signal at the station. One hundred and fifty-three days since a family of four tried to bring their Newfoundland into the store. Forty-six days since she was assigned the graveyard shift. Ten days since New Hampshire public schools were let out for summer vacation. Four days since the fire alarm inexplicably went off at 2:13 am.