Supermarket Sleep
Wednesdays, post-second shift, bone-marrow tired, Kyra grocery-shopped. To stay alert, she categorized customers, itemized their purchases.
First: class, marital status, number of kids, happiness level. Pony-tailed woman opposite Kyra? Pinching pants tight in the crotch? Must be married ten years; barely making do managing odd-lots store; two sucrose-loving preteens; miserable as a mutt, minus flea collar, August.
Cart contents: Pony tail and family down waffles, wings, PB & J, rolls, store-brand sherbet, Bud, Coke.
Kyra’d be sad, eating that.
Pulled leggings, smoothed hair. Double-take: her mirrored reflection! She’d best snap out of this, load check-out counter. Be on her way.
From Guest Contributor Iris N. Schwartz
Iris is a fiction and nonfiction writer, as well as a Pushcart-Prize-nominated poet. Her work has appeared, or is forthcoming, in such journals as Bindweed Magazine, Connotation Press, The Flash Fiction Press, Jellyfish Review, Quail Bell Magazine, and Random Sample Review.
Please support the site by purchasing one of my books on Amazon. Check out Quitting The Grave, a murder mystery set on the Oregon Trail. Plus, don't forget my other books: They Both Loved Vonnegut, Ahab's Adventures in Wonderland, and Picasso Painted Dinosaurs.