Shadows for Breakfast

Bargain shopping on the eve of the apocalypse

by Wes Biggs

There between the sewing supplies and plastic thrifty guilt-free toys people are buying appropriated lives and shopping for mirrors to fashion themselves by.
The lady in the corner holds up an ice cube tray, blue-colored to keep it colder, inspects it with a practiced eye for 99-cent defects from some careless assembly line malfunction. Where do these things come from? Where do they make red-flavored Kool Aid? Where do they make colors flavors? What does red taste like?
Over it lilts the in-store P.A., words of witless wonder flowing o'erhead to the backbeats of studio musicians who probably knew they'd end up here, in Newberry's, in University Village, planted behind lyrics vague enough to not distract the shopping millions from their consumer introspection.
But I've already got an ice cube tray...
But this one's blue...
It'll keep it colder...
I'm in there too, looking for safety pins to put a quick patch on my jeans. Fifty for $1.80. Where do they make these things? That's about three and a half cents per pin.
So I take this box of pins along with my other meager prizes to the counter, smile at Mary, the checkout clerk. I've seen her here before, even had a conversation once or twice. She doesn't seem to mind the endless task of stapling receipts to plastic bags or even the lines of nameless customers that drift by during the fluorescent day shift.
At a different store in a different town a different clerk looks up at me, the College Student, as she waits for a price check. "I don't know about my daughter," she says. "I want her to go to college, but she's just not motivated." She's asking me for help, but I can't think of anything to suggest. "Make sure you encourage her interests," I say. "Make sure she finds something to do that she'll enjoy." But I'm not sure you enjoy what you're doing. I'm not sure I enjoy what I'm doing.
Meanwhile Mary is stapling the receipt for the lady who bought the ice cube tray, blue blue blue, and I smile without opening my mouth as I put my box of safety pins, $1.80, and a bag of candy orange slices and gummi bears, two for a dollar, on the counter next to the genuine imitation perfumes.
"How are you?" she asks cordially.
"I'm alright," I say, the truth. "How have you been? How was your Christmas?" I ask, recalling our last conversation.
"It went well," she says, punching worn buttons on the cash register. I wrestle three singles from my wallet, pass them across that makeshift barrier between buyer and seller, shopper and employee.
The cash drawer flies open like an exodus. Three cents is your change and the music, everpresent, winds down only to start anew, the strains of some turgid melody I don't know but know I've heard before.
Mary looks into my eyes as I turn to leave, thanking her for doing her part. "This is my favorite song," she whispers. "I hope you don't mind if I swoon a little."
I shake my head and smile shyly and break out in tears as I open the door to leave.