There is this crick in my neck this morning. It is an ancient dull bruise that yearns and mutters and gives my spirit a testing. The curve that follows from my ear to my shoulder blade, is a worn band, sputtering and sweating, and I favor that whole side of my body. If I want to look in that direction, I move my body in that direction, I cannot twist my neck. I must have a karmic deficiency. Each morning it is a weakness in a new location. My bones must be brittle my muscles must be thin and stringy, a weak padding for a weak skeleton. Yesterday a left forearm, the day before that a right wrist, the other day each hand somehow.
I search the mattress for rocks, tacks, sticks, lumps, bottles, or maybe even a dwarf that would barrage me with little fists, small enough to bruise my muscle, and soft enough to not wake me. He must be tenderizing my body in preparation for a feast of theirs, where I am the centerpiece. I strip the sheets and shake the pillows, but a bare mattress is just a bare mattress without a knife strong enough to waste on a task such as this. The only thing inside a mattress is springs and boards, and some foreign agents giving me comfort. Today there would be no dwarves, no lumps, no offenders.
I go out. I lose myself in consonants and vowels, fragments and formations. I put my glasses back on, and my skin feels different. I walk back and forth on the bridge. I walk back up the hill to where we started. Guarded under blankets positing darkness. The only thing I can imagine is Judge Holden waiting for me at the outhouse. And now there is an ache in my stomach to accompany my neck. I wait for my girlfriend to go to work, then I go to the store.
What I enjoy about chain supermarkets is that every store has nearly an identical layout. The differences are subtle, either the floorplan is mirrored, or departments are swapped in a discreet manner. It feels the same, it is the same for all practical purposes, but the environment is just so subtly different, that this couldn't be a different store on a different day, this is this store, today. I traverse the aisles, and I pause in a frozen food aisle, underneath a sign curiously labeled "novelties" and notice some odd products. Unconventional combinations of two different food groups. The Safeway version of the national brand, a minute variation on the original. Frozen entrees, lined up and pushing out past the glass. A thundering hum of that of a windstorm preceding the light misting of the vegetables. I crank my neck over, and the tenderness is still present, like a house-guest who fell asleep in the bathroom - you just forgot about it.
I wander about and mill on certain items, and scoff at others. I feel the rippling cascade through my shoulders once again. I purchase some chicken, and the woman behind the counter asks if me and the middle aged woman in line are together or separate. The middle aged woman quickly protests, and laments the fact that a conversation had to come to this precipice. I give a low false intonation, an extended no with a squelching of the eyes. The chicken smells good.
I've come to notice people staring at me. I catch sideways glances, and notice pursuing peripheries, they are taking notes, they are measuring my height. But they could be secret shoppers, with a professional demeanor. Most people who work at grocery stores, that are adults, take themselves too seriously.
I couldn't imagine a secret shopper working lackadaisically.
I arrive at the checkout counter, the ten item or less line, and plop my items onto the conveyor. I have some Safeway brand cookies that were beyond cheap at a dollar, two bags of chips, for my girlfriend and I, she gets the baked ones, I get the Mission chips, the chicken from before and a box of Banquet Maple Syrup Sausages for a dollar. I am wretched. I must have interrupted two cashiers talking, one of them glances at me, and scurries off without a word. The balding man with blue hair who is my cashier doesn't make eye contact, and counts the cracks in the ceiling as I put in my Safeway club card and my debit. He doesn't react swiftly enough for me to print out a receipt. I must redo my purchase, and I mutter and act perturbed and offended on some karmic level, and he calls me Mr. and looks me in the eye. I look at my feet and say glibly "Thanks." There's a voice in my head talking about generosity of spirit. Don't I know it.
Post-Script - Formatting on Blogger is a fucking joke, and I'm not laughing.
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