Ok, this is a long one.
This is a piece that I wrote a few months ago as part of a creative writing class. It’s not very good but I'm rather fond of it. Though written in the first person, this is actually me trying to enter the thought process of a very dear friend of mine as I struggled to watch her deal with her own trials where I was utterly helpless.
Hunting Groceries
I step onto the black striated pad and the doors swing open at my unspoken bidding. I briefly consider the use of the manual doors to my left. What kind of genuine American would ever open a door himself when two steps away a system of lasers and pulleys are perfectly willing and capable?
This is the fifth grocery store in two days. I hardly dare hope as florescent lights race through the metal latticework of pipes and beams painted white, over the endless shelves and out of sight before crashing into the plaster wall at the limits of the warehouse-like store. I am exhausted, my body fatigued from its constant beleaguering. It sent me on a rushed trip to the bathroom midsentence just this afternoon because how dare I try to leave the apartment and socialize after being confined to bed for days. When the white-painted walls started to undulate and close in, staying was no better or worse than puking in a public toilet.
I search the shelves for fifteen minutes before making my half-hearted selection. As I traverse the shining white tiles back to the front of the store, I feel a burning in my throat and a lightness behind my eyes. I am not in a hurry so I stroll past three identical crates of produce except for the color of the mounds rising from their surface; ruby tomatoes contrast with green peppers and bright oranges. A tallish man in a grey sweatshirt browses the deli as an advertisement blasts over the quiet hum of coke machines and air vents. A man garbles and gasps over the loud speakers until he confidently spits out some numbers: “only 9.99 (mumble, mumble) 12.99” he concludes in a cheerful voice, seeming pleased with the obvious success of his effort. The man in the sweatshirt is nervous. He picks various things from the shelves lining the front of the deli and sets them back down; kicking the floor with his sneaker as the man behind the counter quietly slices his selections.
“Will that be all for you?” The man shuffles past neatly stacked rows of colorful chip bags topped with a marching row of red salsa in green metal caps. I step forward and ask for a cup, indicating the soda-fountain to my left. “Just water.”
I sink down at one of the tables to re-read my box. Bread mix. A blue box with yellow lettering screams, “Gluten-free! Wheat-free!” I can see it already…shaping the jell-o-y mass of dough to bread-like shape. The lump won’t change in the oven any more than to restructure the invisible molecules and turn an unappetizing brown. Six dollars for a box of eatable play-dough. I sip my water slowly, dreading the drive back to my lonely apartment through the freezing rain.
A man in a blue cap and red polo works a few feet away. A name tag dangles from his jacket as he scrapes open cardboard boxes and replenishes the stacks of bananas on shelves of grey felt. He carefully separates the yellow bananas from the green and places the bunches shoulder to shoulder like an oblong army. He wanders away out of sight and returns seconds later. He removes his glasses to wipe them, holding them up to his face three times before settling the thick rims back onto his nose. He is methodical but unconcerned as a worn and simple wedding band glints in the light and colors of the produce section. I look away momentarily as a man not much older than myself strolls through the oranges, trailed by three boys, two in matching sweatshirts. The boys chase each other, yelling; their voices breaking the otherwise steady ripples of a relatively calm evening in the store. When I return to the banana-man, I find he has quietly disappeared without any of my further scrutiny.
As I ready myself to stand, a middle-aged manager approaches the soda fountain juggling his pre-packaged dinner on one arm as he holds a cell phone to his shoulder. He croons into the phone; “It’s going to be what’s best for everybody.”
Another employee approaches the banana stand. At first I think maybe she is inspecting the other man’s work, until I realize that she is picking over and messing his carefully arranged piles. She pulls apart two bunches to shove five bananas total into a rustling green bag. I smile (just a little) as a crazy thought half forms in my head. I know just how those bananas feel, being inspected, prodded, pulled apart, only to be peeled, smashed, maybe rot. By selecting perfection she has only delayed the inevitable.
Finally I get up. Kelly Sweet croons softly over the PA system, “Gonna go find me a rainbow / Hang it up in the sky…” I snort as the rest of the lyrics rush unbidden to my consciousness. I kick the chair back to the table, tennis shoes squeaking on the shiny floor tiles. I push hastily through the automatic doors, shoving them open before the sensor registers my movement. Behind me sits a blue box of six-dollar, gluten-free, wheat-free bread mix on a sticky table next to a Styrofoam cup of tepid water, lost under banners of happy people sinking their teeth into bright colors of spuriousness.
