Metropolis - SuperMart

Saturday, May 2nd, 2089 | 11:36pm

Toothpaste.

*Beep*

Milk.

*Beep*

Cereal.

*Beep*

Bananas.

Ugh.

The young cashier sighed. The only thing worse than monotonously scanning barcodes was breaking the rhythm to punch one in. Letting four years of habit guide her movements, she mindlessly weighed the bananas and passed the cursed fruit down to the automated bagging machine. She resumed scanning items and the groceries continued their never-ending journey down the black band of doom.

A couple of toothbrush scans later, Chris knew she was dealing with Ms. Peters’ weekly grocery visit. Lifting her head, she nodded a greeting to the middle-aged woman. In all her time at the SuperMart, Chris had yet to meet anyone half as invested in dental hygiene as the spinster. The woman bought seven toothbrushes every time she went grocery shopping, and that was once a week.

Over time, Chris had entertained several different theories, some as outlandish and sinister as the woman harboring a bunch of kidnapped children and others as mundane as amnesia when it came to toothbrush locations. However, seeing as the rest of the woman’s groceries were in the normal range of human purchases, Chris assumed the woman was just a real germaphobe when it came to oral hygiene. At least, that was the only semi-rational explanation Chris could come up with. Why anyone would need a new toothbrush every day was beyond her.

An image of her own very worn toothbrush came to mind. Chris sighed as she stopped scanning for more fruit, tangerines this time. She tried to stay calm, but as Chris looked at all of the luxuries Ms. Peters was buying, she felt herself succumbing to a wave of financial worries. Food, clothes, electricity, water, gas, school fees, loans… the list of things she needed but could barely afford was endless. Before Chris drowned in despair, she clamped her jaw closed, chasing the thoughts out of her mind. She couldn’t afford to lose herself, not when she had her baby sister depending on her.

It was neither the time nor place for a freak-out session. Chris took a deep breath to calm herself. Her worries were real, but they could wait until she wasn’t in a supermarket full of people. Breathing out, Chris tried to reason with herself as she had so many times before. She was doing all that she could, and worrying about things beyond her control would only make things worse. Forcefully guiding her mind down a more optimistic path, she thought of how she only had two weeks of this hell left. After three arduous years of going to school during the day and working at night, she would finally be graduating with a degree in business. Things were finally going to change for the better. It was all going according to plan. In less than a year, she would never have to worry about money again.

Chris couldn't help a small smile from gracing her lips as she scanned the last of Ms. Peters’ items. She already had a job lined up at one of the biggest art museums of Metropolis. They had a great managerial program that lasted two years, but Chris didn't plan on staying that long. Not when it was just a stepping stone into something much bigger. Chris had lived on the wrong side of the tracks long enough to want to escape it in a big way, and a simple museum job just wasn’t going to cut it.

"Your total is $93.22," Chris said, keeping her eyes down.

She was hoping Ms. Peters’ didn’t want to get into a long-winded discussion about her pet poodles today. Chris had been at the job too long to want to talk to anyone if she could avoid it. After you talked to a customer once, they would want to talk to you the next time and they would want or even expect you to remember them. It was a mistake she had committed all too often at the beginning of her illustrious SuperMart career, and because of too-loyal customers like Ms. Peters, Chris was still living with the repercussions. She’d learned her lesson; the best thing to do was to clock in, stay quiet, do the job and clock out. The world rarely rewarded you for going the extra mile.

Ms. Peters scanned her e-card and a bluish hologram of the wrinkled biddy’s face was projected beside her. It grew in size until it fit her face exactly. Once the hologram overlapped the real face, it flashed green once and disappeared. The payment went through, Ms. Peters gathered her things and Chris moved on to the next customer’s groceries, purposefully not looking up to see who they belonged to. Chris could usually determine who the customer was from the things that they bought. It was a game she’d come up with to pass the time. If death by boredom were possible, Chris would be dead multiple times over. She couldn’t complain though, not when this job was the only thing keeping her alive. Looking down at the conveyor belt, she was all too aware of how easy her job was. So easy, in fact, she could be replaced by a machine at any moment.

Chris sighed. Being a cashier was one of the only minimum-wage jobs left in the economy, and that only because of union influences. All other unwanted jobs that required nothing but motor skills had long been taken over by robots such as the one on bagging duty. Chris sighed again as the last batch of the customer’s items came her way. He was trickier to identify than most, but she’d been able to narrow down a few things about him.

- Men's razors, chips and cereal brands: Probably a man. Women tended to go with sweets for their junk food.

- There was no way he was married. No woman would let him get away with this food or brand selection.

- He lived alone: There was nothing inconsistent with a single user, no random extras like two different toothpaste varieties.

- He didn't have a girlfriend, and wasn’t trying to get one. None of the items would impress a girl. Depress? Possibly. Guys with girlfriends tended to buy random things like olive oil, air freshener, dried fruit, dryer sheets and yogurt. Great boyfriends even went as far as buying moisturizer and tampons.

- He wasn’t hurting for money. There were items from all three of the main brands. A 10% loyalty discount was nothing to scoff at, and yet this guy didn’t seem to care in the least. Even Ms.Peters only bought one brand at a time.

- He didn’t cook. There were fifteen too many frozen meals for that to be the case.

- He probably liked apples. There were a lot of apples.

Mint flavored gum.

*Beep*

That was the last item, and she still had no idea who the man might be. Most customers were repeat visitors, but she hadn’t been able to match the profile to anyone she remembered. After giving herself a final moment of deliberation, Chris admitted defeat and finally allowed herself to look at who she was dealing with. It was rare, but she did fail at recognizing customers by their items sometimes. She was expecting a ‘duh’ moment when she saw the him, but instead she smiled when she saw that she had never seen the man in her life. She hadn’t lost after all.

The man’s features weren’t memorable, but his height was, so she was sure she would have remembered him. Barely over five feet tall, she wasn’t always the best judge of height, but she estimated him to be closer to seven than six feet tall. Maybe it was because her own height was so diminutive, but the man seemed positively gargantuan to her. She would definitely have remembered him, even if his groceries were unremarkable. Being small, she always remembered short and tall people. She commiserated with the first and was jealous over the second. Looking the man over one more time, she committed him and his groceries to memory, wondering if she’d come across him again before she quit. Chris wondered if the apple fetish was a one-time deal. For all she knew, he could be baking apple pies .

Shaking her head, she stopped musing over the apple-use possibilities and took stock of the customer one last time, trying to match the man she saw to the man represented in the items he chose. He was younger than she had expected him to be from his choice of brands, but other than that, she thought she had pretty much nailed his type. Single guy, living alone, probably a bit of a recluse. Lost in thought, she forgot to announce his total and before she knew it, she was caught staring. He was staring right back at her. Her mouth dried up when she saw the expression in his eyes.

“Your total is f-fifty one, seventy two,” Chris said.

The tall man with otherwise unremarkable features paid his bill and went on his way. His dead eyes had given Chris the creeps and she stared after him for a second before she found the will to keep scanning items.

Batteries.

*Beep*

Baby carrots.

*Beep*

Letting the scanning rhythm soothe her nerves, Chris pushed the strange man out of her mind and occupied herself with trying to identify the next customer. It didn’t take long for the item choice to start feeling familiar to her.

Chocolate ice cream.

*Beep*

Suspicion confirmed.

“Debbie,” Chris said, looking up from her job.

“Damn it!”

Chris smiled at the teenager in front of her. The girl was blonde and blue-eyed, just like Chris. In another life, they could have been sisters. Feeling a soft smile creep onto her face, Chris lightly shook her head, trying and failing to hold back a chuckle. Debbie scowled at Chris’ reaction, crossed her arms and stomped her right foot in frustration.

“How do you always know!?” Debbie shouted.

“Chocolate ice cream,” Chris said.

“Yeah, you’ve said that before,” Debie grumbled, pouting. “But even if I don’t get any, you figure it out anyway.”

“Well…” Chris said, trying not to laugh, “there are other things too, not just the ice cream.”

“Like?”

“Well… it’s no one individual item… it’s the mixture of items… the combination…”

Debbie groaned.

“Well, whatever,” the petulant teenager said. “I’m not going to give up on ice cream just so you can’t figure me out.”

“You shouldn’t…”

Debbie glared at her. Chris bit her lip and held up her hands in appeasement. The girl’s glare intensified before she looked at the line behind her, rolled her eyes and relented.

“Ugh, whatever…” Debbie said.

“There’s always tomorrow…”

Debbie narrowed her eyes even more, going into DEFCON-1, and Chris looked down to stop herself from laughing. She’d met Debbie at the very beginning of her cashier career. At the time, the girl had still gone grocery shopping with her mother and Chris hadn’t yet learned the secret of not talking to customers. Over time, Debbie had taken over the responsibility of the Higgins’ weekly groceries and to this day, the girl was still the only one who had caught on to the game that Chris played with the grocery items.

She’d seen Debbie grow up and the girl was now at the age Chris had been when her parents died, six years ago. The thought brought up unpleasant memories from the past. At the time, her world had collapsed in itself. At sixteen, she hadn’t been old enough to take care of her eleven-year-old sister. The state had taken her sister away from her, days after the car accident had taken away both of their parents. Chris had wanted to give up on everything at the time, but the thought of her sister all alone had made her toughen up and get her act together. She’d spent the next six months after the accident getting her GED early and the following three eating scraps, working and saving every cent she had for a three-month deposit for rent at a trailer park. It was the only thing she’d been able to afford, but it was enough to get Rin back. In many ways, it was too late; after nine months with the state, her twelve-year-old sister was unrecognizable from the eleven-year-old that had been taken away from her.

Chris had spent the last five years trying to get that sister back, but it seemed like the carefree old Rin was lost forever. Chris wondered what would have happened if her parents hadn’t died, if Rin would have turned out more like Debbie.

If, under different circumstances, she still could.

Mayonnaise.

*Beep*

Ketchup.

*Beep*

Bread.

*Beep*

Sardines.

Eew.

“Really?” Chris asked, looking up.

“Ugh, I know,” Debbie said. “Dad wanted them.”

They looked at each other in mutual understanding.

“Gross,” they both said at the same time.

Chris grinned, Debbie laughed in response and all was forgiven.

Raspberry jam.

*Beep*

“Your total is thirty-seven, twenty-nine.”

“It’s so lame that you have to say that line every time.”

“If I don’t, the register won’t acknowledge the total.”

“Yeah… I know. But still,” Debbie said. “It sorta makes me feel like they’re trying to turn you into a robot.”

“I hope not…”

“Yeah, me too. I still have to win one against you.”

“Win one?”

“Yep, I’m gonna do it if it’s the last thing I do on this earth.”

“You know, you could just buy different things… I wouldn’t be able to tell if you just came here and bought sixty bottles of water.”

“That would be cheating!”

“Okay then….” Chris said, watching the girl scan her e-card. Five small, bluish hologram faces appeared, two on top and three below. The faces were hidden except for one that grew while the others disintegrated. Debbie’s hologram grew to fit her face, overlapped with her features to check her identity and flashed green before it, too, subsided. “Guess I’ll see you next week.”

“You will!”

Debbie took her things from the automatic bagging machine, swiveled around and stomped off. Chris chuckled at the sight and felt a stab of guilt as she compared Debbie to her own sister. Debbie and Rin were the same age, but so very different from one another. Chris couldn’t help but blame herself. She had tried to provide for Rin as best as she could, but she knew it hadn't been good enough. Rin wasn’t getting the education she should. Chris couldn’t give her all that she wanted. Worst of all, she couldn’t give Rin that carefree gleam she always caught in Debbie’s eyes. Chris took a deep breath, trying to put the pain and worries away. These she knew would return within the hour, but still she had to try to forget. Compartmentalize and forget. For now.

Chris looked at the band of doom before her. It was constant through any kind of turmoil.

Windex.

*Beep*

Paper towels.

*Beep*

Butter.

*Beep*

Strawberry yogurt.

*Beep*

Chris's eyes wandered toward the clock at the top right of her display. 11:47pm. She wondered if Rin had received her message. She had sent it before the beginning of her second shift, one she’d agreed to fill in for last minute. In another thirteen minutes, she would be able to check her phone during the break. Chris sighed, knowing they would be the longest thirteen minutes of the whole shift. Over time, she had learned that the secret to a fast shift was ignoring the clock entirely. Once you looked at it, you wouldn't be able to look away, and once you weren’t able to look away, time would stand still, as if to spite you.

Her eyes wandered back as if to prove a point. 11:48pm.

A bag of flour.

*Beep.*

11:49pm.

“Damn it,” Chris muttered under her breath.

She sighed, castigating herself before being distracted by a small commotion at the entrance of the store. One of the new guys whose name she didn't remember was bringing the manager to speak to two men. With their cheap suits, starched shirts and ill-concealed weapons, she could immediately tell they were cops.

She stiffened and brought her attention back to scanning. She could feel a lump of cold dread in her stomach. It appeared every time she saw a cop. This was twenty times worse than the discomfort she felt when worrying about her daily fears and she could barely focus on the task before her. Chris let her body take over. Her brain was useless anyway, too busy worrying if the cops were there for her. Common sense told her they weren't. Common sense told her there was no proof. No proof she was guilty.

An image of her storage unit, surrounded by cops and flashing lights, came to mind. She shuddered at the thought and peeked at the trio of men. They were still standing at the entrance, and by the looks of it, nothing bad was going to happen. Everyone seemed calm, no one was screaming. The placid scene didn’t match the turmoil Chris was feeling inside.

Trying to convince herself it had nothing to do with her, Chris turned back to the groceries in front of her. After what felt like an eternity but was probably only a few seconds, she felt the lump in her stomach ease incrementally. Every time she came across cops, she felt the same dread and every time, it was a false alarm. Chris couldn't help looking at the men once more before taking a more relaxed breath.

They couldn’t be here for her. She’d distanced herself from Eddie a long time ago, hadn’t even seen him for years, almost as long as her parents had been dead. She slowly managed to calm herself down. Chris checked out the next customer and snuck another look at the entrance.

The manager had walked off and the men were heading down toward aisle three. She let out a shuddering breath of relief. They weren’t here for her after all. Cops needed food, or cleaning products or… floss. They weren’t bogeymen, they were just humans who happened to be police. Chris looked at them once more as they disappeared into the baked goods aisle.

She smiled wryly, thinking about cops giving into the whole donut cliche. That thought almost made her laugh in shaky, uncertain relief and she returned her attention to the groceries. Most of the lump was slowly dissolving into a niggling sensation she knew wouldn't leave until they left or she was home. She checked the time. 11:59pm. Looking up, she saw the new guy headed towards her to relieve her for her break.

Absentmindedly, she turned her attention back to the black band of doom.

Doughnuts.

*Beep.*

Chris looked up in time to see two cops flashing badges in her face.

"Christina Bolen, you are under arrest for the murder of Edward McKlose. You have the right to remain silent. Anything you say can and will be used against you in a court of law. You have the right to consult an attorney..."