Supermarket

Piece written on the theme Lost vs. Found for Writers HQ Flash Face Off for week commencing 13th July.  I did a few of these a couple of months ago and have been checking the prompts most weeks but have often started and then not finished pieces based on the prompts.  This week I did at least finish the piece, not 100% sure about how well I have pulled off the ending but it did at least get finished…

SUPERMARKET

I was in the bread aisle, getting the bread.

You had said you would meet me in the pet food aisle. You had the trolley.

My arms were full of loaves. I had picked up more than we needed because I thought you would find it funny when I came round the corner and you saw me carrying so much bread.

You were not in the pet food aisle.

I was squishing the top loaf of bread under my chin to keep it in place.

I wondered if you had been and gone from the pet food aisle, or if you had not got there yet, and decided it would be best to loop back towards the aisles with all the tins and jars in, with the dried goods like pasta and with all the teabags and the coffee. I didn’t know the shopping list off by heart, but I knew you would need to get some things from those aisles.

I went along the top of each aisle and looked down, but there was no sign of you in any of them. Either you were not in that section or you happened to be going around the far end of the aisle just as I was looking down it.

You were somewhere in the supermarket.

I was getting fed up of carrying around all that bread.

Once I had scoured the aisles with the tins and jars and dried goods in, I went back to check the pet food and established that you were either not there yet or you had been and gone.

Then I repeated those steps a few more times to be sure, even popped my head into the dairy section and the deli, before returning again to pet food.

Next I moved on to the drinks section, because that was the next part of the supermarket. But you weren’t buying cans of fizzy drinks or cartons of juice.

Down the beer and cider aisle, past the spirits and into the wine section. You wouldn’t be here, but I stopped anyway.

I concentrated on holding all the loaves using only my left hand whilst I fished my phone from my pocket with my right hand. There was nothing new, no messages.

I took a moment to stand and read the labels of the wine bottles, all the different types of wine and where they had been made.

Lots of places I had never thought I could just go to. Chile, Argentina, New Zealand. Could just up and go.

Go and live there, why not? Or maybe become an alcoholic.

It might be easy, start drinking some wine, forget to stop.

While away time that way.

Detach, forget, obliterate.

Drift. Forget.

Eventually I left the wine section.

I found you, pushing the trolley, turning into the pet food aisle.

“Ha! You managed to get the bread then?!”

“Yeah,” I said, dumping the bread in the trolley and not finding it funny.