Grocery Store
Eleanor Furness
I’m up next in line at the grocery store
I start laying down my items on the small conveyor belt
Completely absorbed by thoughts of what I’ll eat first
When the hairs on the back of my neck decide to stand up
And it feels as though the contents of my stomach liquidate and run down the front of my spine
Something is off
And I suddenly remember when I told my Dad at six
That jump scares were nowhere near as scary as something feeling ever so slightly off
The same reason I asked my mom to stop saying “That’s weird...”
When she misplaced something
To stop the adrenaline from creeping up my back
I reluctantly look up to immediately lock eyes with the man in the que across from me
I can’t hear and
All I see are
His eyes
That tell me
I own you.
Paralyzed
I doubt myself first
What if this man is only trying to be nice?
What could I be falsely reading into this situation?
Will anyone believe me if I tell them a look could carry sickness?
Refusing to turn his gaze, he tilts his head slightly down in an expression that wears like a Neolithic mask
It is precisely the way his eyes alert me that I am looking at a mask
By being the cracks in it
That conjures this overwhelming feeling of “off”
Upon realizing that this look carries weight
My body becomes a ball of overstretched rubber bands and heat drops from my face
I know he knows that my bands are snapping
His look intended to ensnare
And I suppose I’m safe in a crowded space with at least five feet separating us
But fear can be independent of proximity
So easily
Everything you thought you knew can be unceremoniously uprooted
He gets to look at you while you look at the floor
You get to feel everything that has affected you in this way tugging at your sleeves like needy children
Now I concentrate on exactly where he is without seeing
On exactly what he says without hearing
And exactly what he intends without speaking
Once I leave the store carrying the groceries, each step towards the car feels like another limb untied and another
second of breath regained
I now understand that in that grocery store line
As I was thinking about what I was going to consume first
So was he.
I wonder if I will ever forget how a look could make someone deteriorate
I think of how watermelons undergo a process called autolysis when they’ve over ripened
It’s a process of self-digestion where the melon rots from the inside out
And how aromas from one rotten fruit can trigger the process in other produce
Telling them it’s time to begin autolysis
I start laying down my items on the small conveyor belt
Completely absorbed by thoughts of what I’ll eat first
When the hairs on the back of my neck decide to stand up
And it feels as though the contents of my stomach liquidate and run down the front of my spine
Something is off
And I suddenly remember when I told my Dad at six
That jump scares were nowhere near as scary as something feeling ever so slightly off
The same reason I asked my mom to stop saying “That’s weird...”
When she misplaced something
To stop the adrenaline from creeping up my back
I reluctantly look up to immediately lock eyes with the man in the que across from me
I can’t hear and
All I see are
His eyes
That tell me
I own you.
Paralyzed
I doubt myself first
What if this man is only trying to be nice?
What could I be falsely reading into this situation?
Will anyone believe me if I tell them a look could carry sickness?
Refusing to turn his gaze, he tilts his head slightly down in an expression that wears like a Neolithic mask
It is precisely the way his eyes alert me that I am looking at a mask
By being the cracks in it
That conjures this overwhelming feeling of “off”
Upon realizing that this look carries weight
My body becomes a ball of overstretched rubber bands and heat drops from my face
I know he knows that my bands are snapping
His look intended to ensnare
And I suppose I’m safe in a crowded space with at least five feet separating us
But fear can be independent of proximity
So easily
Everything you thought you knew can be unceremoniously uprooted
He gets to look at you while you look at the floor
You get to feel everything that has affected you in this way tugging at your sleeves like needy children
Now I concentrate on exactly where he is without seeing
On exactly what he says without hearing
And exactly what he intends without speaking
Once I leave the store carrying the groceries, each step towards the car feels like another limb untied and another
second of breath regained
I now understand that in that grocery store line
As I was thinking about what I was going to consume first
So was he.
I wonder if I will ever forget how a look could make someone deteriorate
I think of how watermelons undergo a process called autolysis when they’ve over ripened
It’s a process of self-digestion where the melon rots from the inside out
And how aromas from one rotten fruit can trigger the process in other produce
Telling them it’s time to begin autolysis