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The Bystander
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by Casey D. Johnson


	It was another slow Tuesday morning for Beatrice Mendelson. She had worked 
at the Salvation Army in Edea, Minnesota, for more than twenty years, and she 
had never had to work a busy Tuesday morning. Saying it was ‘not busy’ is still 
not to be confused with having ‘no customers.’ People always loitered in the 
store: Homeless people escaping the cold or the occasional new resident to the 
small town looking for some trinket or another. But a rush of people? Never.
	This was fine with Beatrice. She came into work, indolently picked up 
dropped trinkets, talked with store regulars, or, as she was doing today, lazily 
rearranged shoes. Even through the job was quite tedious, Mrs. Mendelson always 
worked with a kind smile on her age-worn face. 
	As she was working on removing certain shoes from the Army’s collection, 
the three unusual customers arrived. Beatrice didn’t notice them at first, as 
she was on the other side of the store, and did not pay attention to the front 
door. The three went unnoticed by the kind old woman for quite a while; not 
until a total, stunned silence descended over the rest of the store. Only when 
the trio came within four rows of her did Beatrice begin to pay attention to the 
seemingly loud conversation.

	“--- can’t believe you’re following through with this…” The first voice 
was feminine, and possessed more than a hint of ire.
	“Talia, you lost that bet fair and square,” commented a masculine voice. 
With a bit of amusement filling his Canadian accent, he added, “Besides, why 
wouldn’t I follow through on this?”
	“Well, for one, I thought you would be kind enough not to embarrass me 
like this.”
	“That,” a new masculine voice chimed in, “and the fact that you almost 
never follow through…on anything.”
	“Thanks, Cero,” the other two voices replied in unison, the feminine voice 
carrying a distinctly more thankful tone.

	Beatrice turned towards the aisle where she believed the trio of voices 
would soon be passing. Within seconds, the raucous bunch turned directly into 
her aisle. But instead of lightly scolding the three for causing such a racket, 
Beatrice found she could only stand and gape at what she saw before her.
	There were two men and a woman in the group; all outrageously dressed. But 
their shocking fashion sense wasn’t the thing that astounded the old woman; the 
thing that made this threesome stand out in a crowd was the fact that they 
appeared to be half dog, half human. All three stood upright, and had the same 
height and build as humans, but they were covered with fur, had tails, and 
possessed dog-like faces (muzzles, ears and all). 
	The male in the lead, who looked like a small Collie to Beatrice, wore all 
black, including boots, jeans, shirt, and even a long black trenchcoat. He 
grinned and pointed to the racks of shoes lining the aisle. With a flash of 
amusement passing through his emerald-colored eyes, he said, “See Talia? Here we 
are, primed and ready to purchase our brand new—wait, no…” He paused and placed 
his thumb and forefinger onto his chin in a thoughtful gesture. After a quick 
second of thought, he turned his head back to the female, which caused his 
ponytail of snow-white, shoulder-length hair to flick over his shoulder. He 
finally finished, “Ready to purchase our slightly used shoes, as per our 
little wager.”
	The female, Talia, didn’t look like one to be taken lightly, according to 
her clothing. She wore black combat boots, black slacks, a black T-shirt, black 
finger-less leather gloves, and an unzipped long-sleeve white camouflage jacket. 
All of this nicely complimented her pure white fur and silver eyes, which seemed 
to be thoroughly and constantly analyzing everything. 
	Talia rolled her eyes at the orange-and-white furred leader, then 
responded, “Yeah, yeah. So we have. Can we just get this over with, Dervish?”

	“Talia’s right, Derv. We actually do need to be back at headquarters in 
about six hours, and it’s a long ways from here…” Beatrice, astonished by the 
sight of these three strangers, identified the third voice as belonging to Cero. 
He was brown furred, with a shocking white diamond marking covering his right 
eye. His clothing was a deep navy blue hue, and resembled the splicing of the 
outfits of a police officer and a mercenary from two different video games 
Beatrice had seen one of her grandchildren playing once. The form-fitting cargo-
type pants he wore had many pockets filled with who-knows-what. His long-sleeved 
shirt was more like a piece of armor; the chest was covered with a thin plate of 
metal cut in a protective fashion, and both shoulders held smaller metal plates 
on them. Why anyone would need such protection was beyond the old woman. 
	After a moment of glancing at his two companions, Dervish gave a quick 
shrug, saying, “Alright then. Let’s find Talia a nice, good looking, sensible 
pair of shoes to model for all of our friends back at Mission Control, shall 
we?” 
	The Collie—no, Beatrice now believed it to be most likely a Shetland 
Sheepdog due to his smaller size. The Sheltie slowly turned back to the shoes, 
eyes poring over every pair of footwear. Suddenly his head snapped over to the 
gaping form of Beatrice. 
	“Goodness,” she thought, “He’s looking right at me, and—Oh my! I’ve been 
rude enough to just stand here gaping at them! I’m sure they get enough of that 
as it is…” The aging woman’s composure finally came back to her when she 
remembered the report Stone Phillips had done on these ‘cano-sapiens’ three 
weeks ago. He had said that most of the members of this new, genetically 
engineered species acted as super-heroes, due to their loyalty, strength, and 
most importantly their super powers. They were people too, with virtues and 
feelings just like everybody else; they just looked different.
	Recalling this finally allowed Beatrice to stop gaping and ask, “Um…May I 
help you with anything, sir?”

	Dervish gave the woman a warm smile and said, “Yes, actually.” He then 
pointed to a spot just over Beatrice’s shoulder. “Are those shoes for sale, per 
chance?” When she turned around and saw what he was talking about, the woman did 
a double take. The pair of shoes he was asking about were the most ludicrous-
looking shoes owned by the Army. They were a shiny gold color, and did not look 
the least bit comfortable. The orange-furred Sheltie, when he saw the store 
worker knew which pair he was talking about, then said with obvious amusement, 
“I think the guys back at Mission Control would love to see how Talia here would 
look in some bowling shoes…”
	Cero raised an eyebrow, then stated, “Those aren’t bowling shoes, Derv.”
	“Yes they are! Just look at them!”
	“I am looking at them, and they look like they have a patterned sole. In 
case you’ve forgotten, bowling shoes don’t have patterns.”
	“I know that,” Dervish replied irately. He turned to Cero and continued, 
“Those shoes sure don’t look like they’ve got a pattern on them to me…”
	The two males proceeded to argue about whether the shoes were bowling 
shoes or not. Talia decided to stay out of the discussion, opting instead to 
sigh and shake her head. Beatrice didn’t quite know how to deal with the 
situation herself, so she cautiously walked over to Talia. 
	“Do they do this often?” she asked worriedly. 
	“More often than I’d care to admit,” replied the white-furred cano-sapien, 
casting a defeated glance to the worker.
	Before Beatrice could continue querying the cano-sapien, or the two males 
could resolve their minor conflict, an odd woman stumbled into the aisle. She 
had an atrocious look about her; she wore a pink blouse with olive green slacks, 
and faded yellow shoes. Her brown hair was tangled and matted, and looked as if 
it hadn’t been combed in days. Stuck loosely onto her wrinkled blouse was a blue 
and white party nametag, which read, “Hi! My name is: Robin.”

	Robin stumbled into the aisle, bloodshot eyes searching avidly for 
something or another. Her shocking appearance silenced Talia and Beatrice, and 
she went completely unnoticed by Cero and Dervish, still engrossed in their 
dispute. 
	After a moment of wobbly leaning in closer to the shoes and squinting, the 
out-of-place woman (for she truly did seem out of place, even in an aisle with 
three canine super-heroes already in it) noticed the same pair of golden shoes 
which the Sheltie and mutt were fighting over. Before anybody could stop her, 
Robin reached out and snatched the shoes off of the metal rack. 
	“Well maybe you should just go and pick up the shoes and see for yourself, 
Derv!”
	The Sheltie crossed his arms, then said in a defiant tone, “Well, fine. 
Maybe I will,” at this point Dervish unconsciously took a step back to make room 
for Robin, who was stumbling out of the aisle and would have most likely pushed 
the two cano-sapiens out of the way before going around them. “I’ll go pick them 
up now, just to prove---“ 
	Dervish stopped in mid-sentence when he realized that an oddly dressed 
woman, who was muttering something about her need for some Ibuprofen and a man, 
had just passed right between Cero and himself, carrying what looked like a 
shiny golden pair of shoes. He took a quick glance back to where the shoes had 
been moments ago, then stated in disbelief, “That woman just took the shoes, 
Cero.”
	The taller cano-sapien confirmed his compatriot’s statement, saying, “So 
it seems.” 
	Dervish took a moment to consider the situation. Suddenly, he began to 
walk after the woman in the hopes of peaceably getting the shoes back. On his
way out of the aisle he grabbed Cero’s arm, dragging the mutt with him. The last 
words Talia heard him utter were, “Well come on! We’ve got to get those shoes 
back! Those were the perfect shoes to loosen up the tightwads at HQ…”
	The two people remaining in the shoe aisle, Beatrice and Talia, were both 
left in varying degrees of shock. For Talia, the unexpected occurred more often 
than not, so she snapped out of her shock momentarily. Talia calmly walked over 
to the rack and began to pace up and down in its length.

	Beatrice however, was quite unaccustomed to anything extraordinary; Edea 
was just a small town in the upper-Midwestern United States. Nothing exciting 
happened in the town, or to her. She remained transfixed, pondering if what she 
had just seen was real or just an elaborate dream.
	Meanwhile, Talia quickly scanned the rows of shoes, then picked up a white 
pair of Reeboks. She turned them over in her hands, finding that except for the 
slight wear marks and the many embedded rocks in the hexagonal pattern of the 
soles, the shoes were perfectly acceptable. The dirty tag on the tongue sported 
a neat looking design made up of twelve concave quadrilaterals in a circular 
pattern and the words ‘Reebok Classic.’ Quickly and efficiently inspecting the 
inside of one shoe, she determined that the walking shoes would most certainly 
fit her feet. Hopefully their slightly worn look would be enough to appease 
Dervish’s desire to embarrass her in front of his friends.
	 Talia took up the shoes and began to calmly walk out of the aisle. 
However, she stopped when she reached the still form of the store clerk. The 
White Shepherd turned to the woman and said very honestly, “I’m sorry for any 
commotion we’ve probably caused here today…I suppose we’ve sort-of gotten used 
to people’s reactions. Thanks for putting up with us, though.” The cano-sapien 
turned and resumed walking out of the aisle. 
	Beatrice just stood there, stunned by the events of the past five minutes. 
Her mind was overloaded, unable to comprehend what had actually just occurred. 
Before Talia could walk out of earshot, however, Beatrice did manage to recite a 
phrase that she had repeated countless times, and was now indelibly etched into 
her psyche.

	“You have a nice day now, dear.”