Mercado Norte

Artemis had been working at Mercado Norte since Arthur had first brought him to the market six years ago. Arthur had told Artemis that, in exchange for room, board and health benefits, he needed Artemis to cover the store’s customer relations and pest control duties. For Artemis, it was a pretty good deal. Even in Chicago, where he had seen rats almost as big as himself when he was younger, very few rats tried to get into buildings, so the pest control was mostly limited to small mice and the occasional cockroach. And as for customer relations, well that was easy. Artemis had always been great with people, and the soft bed and warm meals Arthur had been providing had allowed Artemis to fill out and look even more approachable. But working in the market still came with rules. Arthur had shown Artemis on his first day where he could and could not go, and although Artemis had been curious about what was in those rooms, he knew the rules, so he didn’t push it. No need to risk losing the warm bed and hot meals.

So, for six years, Artemis had continued to control pests, and relate to customers, and some months did both of those things well enough to have Arthur put his picture on the wall as the employee of the month. It was on the morning of the third day after one of those high-performing months that Artemis had woken up, stretched, walked out from behind the counter where he slept at night, and sat in the window, expecting to watch the city wake up while he waited for Arthur to come and make his breakfast. But, as he sat there, Artemis noticed that the city was quieter than usual, and it was pretty clear why: overnight, nearly three feet of snow had fallen. Artemis had never seen anything like it. The snow came all the way up to the bottom of the window. Not even the streets had been plowed. And worse still, the snow was still coming down, seemingly harder and faster by the minute. Artemis sat in the window, transfixed. After nearly an hour, he felt his stomach rumble. After two hours, he became seriously concerned that Arthur would not be coming by any time soon to make him breakfast. By the third hour, with the snow still piling up, Artemis realized that his worst fears were realized: there would be no Arthur today.

Artemis weighed his options. He could continue to sit here, watching the snow pile up, and hope Arthur made it in eventually. Looking out, this seemed unlikely. Artemis knew he would have to find his own breakfast. He walked over to the cabinet where the meats were kept, but it was empty, and even if it hadn’t been, he had never figured out to how open the door. He sniffed at some of the fruit, but shuddered at the smell of it. It would take a few more days of hunger before he resorted to that. After a few more minutes of unsuccessful searching, Artemis stopped to think. It seemed the only places he hadn’t looked for food were the back rooms. But, as Arthur had always reminded him when he had looked into them before, those rooms were strictly off limits. But Artemis couldn’t ignore his rumbling stomach any more.

“Desperate times and all that” he muttered to himself, and he set off to the back.

The first room he came to had a large metal door. Artemis sniffed at the base, and even jumped on the stool next to the door, but knew right away that he wouldn’t be getting in that room. Not that he was upset about it; he had walked past before when Arthur was in there, and even on the hottest days, it was bone chillingly cold in there. He had more luck with getting into the next room, as it had not been latched and he had been able to slide his paw underneath and pull it open. But as it only held a few brooms and mops, Artemis didn’t do anything more than look quickly around the floor before moving on. There was only one room left now. Artemis felt his stomach rumble as he moved towards it. If he struck out here he wasn’t sure what he would do. Already it felt like he had gone days without food, and who knew when Arthur would be back to make him another meal?

Artemis sniffed at the door when he got to it. He could smell food on the other side, but nothing like what Arthur normally made him. He nudged at the door with his head, even put his front paws on it and pushed it, but the latch stopped it from moving more than the tiniest of amounts. Artemis walked a few steps back, sat down, and contemplated the door. He had seen Arthur open it before by pulling down on the handle and walking in. But no matter how much Artemis stretched, he couldn’t reach the handle from the floor.

Artemis spent the better part of the next hour working to push something, ANYTHING, over to the door to help better reach it. After a few dozen failed attempts, Artemis finally found an empty box he was able to push with his head, and slid it into place. Artemis stepped back, jumped up, and fell straight through. Artemis couldn’t believe his luck. The one box that was light enough for him to move, and he ends up being too heavy to stand on it. Artemis’s stomach rumbled again, and the thought of starvation once again crossed Artemis’s mind. He realized it had now been almost an entire day since he last ate. Maybe it would be best if he just curled up by the vent and went to sleep. At least then he wouldn’t have to think of how hungry he was. But he knew that wasn’t an option. He couldn’t quit now. Artemis began poking around the market more and eventually found another box. This time he tested it before he took the time to move it, and was pleasantly surprised to find it took his weight without issue.

Artemis nudged it into place, and gingerly stepped onto it, still worried, despite his earlier test, that it would collapse like the last one. But the box continued to hold. Encouraged, Artemis placed his front paws on the door and was overjoyed to see that he could more than reach the handle. But now a new problem presented itself: he had no way to grab onto the handle like Arthur did. But after several failed attempts, Artemis managed to curl each of his paws around the handle and hang on long enough for the handle to dip downwards. In his excitement, however, Artemis forgot that by pulling the handle down, the door would now swing open. Artemis hung in the air, grasping the handle, for the briefest of seconds before plunging what turned out to only be a few inches to the floor. After gathering himself for a second, Artemis pushed the door open the rest of the way, and looked around. All around the room stood shelf after shelf of many of the same food that was out in the rest of the store. Artemis sniffed around the lower parts of the shelves immediately in front of him, but only smelled more of the same inedible garbage.

As Artemis reached the back of the room, however, a familiar scent reached him: kibble. Somewhere, high above him, sat Artemis’s last hope for survival. Ignoring the renewed rumbling of his stomach, Artemis began to look for ways up. Backtracking, he found a shelf with an open space low enough for him to jump onto, and wide enough for him to land on, and sprang onto it. He crept almost halfway along that shelf before seeing an opening across the aisle. Artemis leapt across the gap, but as he landed, he felt the shelf sway, and on the other side several boxes fell to the ground. Artemis ignored it. The kibble was nearly in reach. He walked carefully to the end of the shelf he was on, until he was lined up with the shelf that, unless his nose had deceived him, held his dinner. But this gap was considerably larger than the last one. Artemis crouched low, putting all of his weight onto his hind legs. He pumped his hips, warming them up, and flicked his tail eagerly. He looked over, found his landing spot, and launched himself into the abyss.

As he landed, Artemis heard a crash behind him, and looking back saw the shelf he had just leapt from lying on the floor, boxes and food scattered all around it. Artemis knew the work Arthur would have to do later to clean that up and felt a pang of guilt, which lasted less than an instant, as his nose again caught the scent of kibble. Turning, Artemis sniffed at the bags, and seconds later found what he had been looking for: a big blue bag, stuffed full of delicious kibble. Artemis pawed at the top, trying to open it, but was unable to do more than cause it to move back and forth. Artemis sat down, frustrated. He looked back down at the mess he had caused, and became worried that it had all been for nothing. But, as he looked at the bags on the floor, he was struck with an idea. Moving behind the bag, he began pushing as hard as he could until the bag reached the edge and fell to the floor below, where it exploded open. With an ecstatic meow, Artemis jumped down, and began eating every piece of kibble he could reach.

The next morning, Arthur reached the store at 4:30 a.m. All night he had sat up, worried about Artemis, and as soon as the highways had opened he had jumped in his car and driven into town. Arthur walked in and looked around. All seemed quiet. But as he reached the back storeroom he saw not only that the door was open, but that the shelf in the middle of the room had tipped over, spilling food everywhere. Arthur panicked, thinking Artemis was somewhere beneath the carnage, but then he spied something that made his heart leap. On the floor, behind the shelf, fast asleep with his head in the bag of kibble, was Artemis.