The price of salt

Therese has just started a job at a sprawling, almost mechanized department store, where lunchtime feels like a crowded factory floor. Between the clatter of trays and the endless flow of paperwork, she clings to a thin employee handbook, dreaming of vacation years, a Norwegian sweater, and a life beyond the towering aisles. The store’s regimented routine sharpens her sense that she is trapped in a place that values efficiency over the small, human moments she craves.

At home, her boyfriend Richard promises trips to France and an introduction to a theatre‑design apprenticeship that could finally let her shape something artistic. Yet the sterile corridors of the store amplify her frustration with meaningless chores and the feeling that each person lives in isolation, a loneliness that grows louder with every clock‑in. As she balances the pull of a possible creative future against the suffocating present, Therese begins to question whether she will ever break free from the “Frankenberg material” that seems to define her.