Spider Apricots

‘What do we need again?’ 

I grabbed a shopping basket and tried to visualise the list I had made that was now probably at the bottom of my bag, under a pile of receipts, gum wrappers, and who knows what else. There was no point in even trying to get it out of there. 

Nothing. Not a single item on that list came to mind.

‘I’m not too sure, let’s just walk around the store.’ 

Aisle one:

The first aisle was blocked by a black sign that read ‘Caution, wet floor’ in bold, yellow letters. Scarlet water covered the entirety of its floor, and the aisle’s shelves were completely empty save for a few silver spiderwebs. 

I would have asked someone what had happened, but when I looked around, I realised I was the only person in the store. I told myself that the cashiers must have gone to check something in the storage room, and yet I couldn’t shake this

‘Aisle two it is.’

Aisle two:

During daytime, this aisle would be filled with children. School kids grabbing snacks in the morning, children begging their mothers for sweets. At this hour, however, it was completely deserted. 

Rows of pineapple-cherry chocolate bars and packets of sea-salt lollipops, I walked past and grabbed a vanilla gummy bunny. 

The opposite row had even more options, sporting every type of savoury snack, from Flyers honey crisps and banana popcorn, to sugar crackers. 

I saw a silhouette from the corner of my eyes, someone grabbing a pack of mini caramelised apples, but when I turned around, no one was there.

‘Has the temperature suddenly dropped?’

‘It sure feels like it has… Come on, let’s get out of here.’

Aisle three

Aisle three was the fruit and vegetables aisle, although it looked like it had been ransacked during the day. Only a couple of jet-black apples had remained, along with a few crimson pears and some other fruits that had expired. Not that I cared about that sort of stuff, I couldn’t afford to right now. After all, beggars can’t be choosers.

I looked carefully for some apricots, as I had decided weeks ago to bake a pie and had finally bothered to buy the ingredients, but it seemed like they didn’t have any left.

‘A cerulean-cherry pie is fine too I guess; I’ll make a spider apricot one some other time.’

So, I grabbed a twenty-three-cherry packet, and glanced at the expiry date: 2nd of November. Only a couple of days ago… Luckily, I had decided to make this pie for my neighbours, so I didn’t really care how rotten the fruits were, as long as they didn’t die, I’d be fine.

But as soon as I went to place them in my basket, I noticed a bag of baby-pink apricots, covered in a black, spiral net.

I put the cherries back to where they belonged and walked on. Those apricots… I had no idea where they had come from, but I decided not to question it. Things like this just happened sometimes, and since this time it had happened in my favour, I wasn’t going to waste time trying to find an answer that might not even exist.

I walked towards the next isle. If my shopping list were to mysteriously find itself in my hand, I would be very grateful.

Aisle four.

The frozen foods aisle, or as I call it, the depths hell that this supermarket truly is. I hardly went here, since I was more for fresh products, but since they had shut down an aisle, I figured why not.

I clutched my jacket as I walked through it, one of the glass doors had shattered, and rather than replacing it the shop’s owner had decided to just lower the whole market’s temperature to minus eighteen degrees.

‘We’re going to die in here.’

I needed two packs of frozen peas from the frozen veggies ‘sub-aisle’. I had broken my nose a few weeks ago, and when I had looked into the freezer for something to soothe that awful, throbbing pain. I’ve now learnt my lesson: never, under any circumstances, run out of peas.

‘What else do we need…?’

‘Ice cream?’

‘Yes! Ice cream! How could I forget?’

My diet basically consisted of ice cream; it was one of my major food groups. Rose sorbets, vanilla sundaes, and plain old hazelnut ice cream.

The next and final item for this aisle was dinosaur nuggets. I would have called them ‘chicken nuggets’ or ‘plant-based chicken nuggets’ except that I wasn’t sure what these nuggets were made out of, even the ingredients section at the back of the box failed to mention what they were made out of, so they were just known as dinosaur nuggets, due to their shapes. 

Truth to be told, I didn’t care what they were made out of, they tasted good and that’s all that mattered to me.

The Clearance Shelf

Not an aisle, but important nonetheless. You could find the weirdest things here, one time, I found a can of pineapples, even though cans hardly ever go off.

But this time, it was completely empty. Not a single thing was there.

I don’t know why I was so surprised; the shop was about to close.

Maybe I should have come earlier.