ONE TURN AWAY, PART 2 He drifted back into present reality just in time to hear the two women talk about a leak in someone’s garden hose. Then the subject turned to what type of grass was the hardest to mow, and after that to which lawn care service was the best. Before too long there didn’t seem to be one single aspect of human agriculture in all of existence that the two bats hadn’t discussed at some point. George wandered back over to the edge of the aisle and looked. Both of the employees were exactly where they’d been. He wondered if he could ask the one stacking the shelves with charcoal to bring him a drill from the Do-It-Yourself section. It wasn’t very far away. There would be only a few seconds of pain. Who knew? Maybe God would go easy on him, given the circumstances. Of course Edna and Frederica hadn’t moved an inch either by the time he returned to the aisle. The only difference was that the latter had turned around and started looking at the items on the other side of the shelf. “OH I DO NEED ONE OF THESE INSECT REPELLENTS,” she said. “THERE ARE SO MANY BUGS THESE DAYS.” “Well, go ahead and select one then,” Edna said. George tried his best to squash the false hope arising within him. There was a chance that Edna was growing impatient too—but at this point who could dare to dream? All the same he didn’t know how much longer he could hold it all in. “WHAT’S THAT?” Frederica said as she pointed again, this time at a machine up on the rack. Her eyes had widened as though she were looking at some sort of suspicious device. “It’s a grill lighter!” George barked at her. “See?? See those giant yellow letters on the package saying ‘GRILL LIGHTER’???” The two women seemed to notice him for the first time upon hearing this response. They stared at him like they were having an acid flashback after forty sober years and he had appeared as a huge, winged, polka-dotted albino ape who’d approached them skipping merrily and saying, ‘Greetings! I am a visitor from another dimension and mean you no harm! Here, as a sign of my peaceful intentions I come bearing cow pies from your farm back home—a token of happy times long past!’ “I’m awfully sorry for snapping at you like that,” George said, “but can I please get by?” After staring blankly for another long moment they moved, the cart along with them. George never saw them pull it. Rather the women and the cart just...parted, smoothly and with perfect symmetry. As ridiculous as the association may be it was hard not to think of Moses and The Red Sea. It was just one of those little moments in life where odd things briefly happen that we never talk about, or even really think about for very long. At first George couldn’t wait to get out of the store. He hadn’t even noticed until now that he was experiencing mild strain from carting around the box of screening with one arm for so long. He hadn’t been thinking about the screen at all. His attention had been entirely preoccupied by the two old ladies. And even now the only reason why he felt like he wanted more than anything to go home and collapse onto the soft, soft sofa was so that he could never see this place again for as long as he lived. Walmart...oh how he hated Walmart! He was headed to the regular checkout counters at the front of the store, and he’d almost made it there when he remembered for the first time that there was something else he needed too while he was out of the house. In less than one minute he managed to hightail it over to the pharmacy section, pick out a bright blue bottle of Cloud Nine laxative, and return to what had previously been an empty stretch in the one available checkout lane. It was no longer empty. “OH LOOK, EDNA, THEY HAVE PEOPLE MAGAZINE!” George’s heart and mind competed to see which could race the fastest. He was reminded of all of those scenes from the horror films he would take dates to as a teenager. One of the heroes would shove a machete into the face of the undead slasher and then for some insane reason drop his weapon, and at that point the director would foolishly have the camera linger for several seconds on the killer’s face, completely spoiling what came next (not that the audience wouldn’t see it coming anyway, given that it’s the very *same* thing that had happened every time in the eight previous entries in the series). Yep, as sure as he was born the killer suddenly snapped back into life and grabbed hold of someone’s leg as he was starting to walk away. George would then smirk and shake his head while all around him other people were shrieking in terror. He would think, what exactly did that moron up on the screen *expect* to happen? He’d *known* this guy was undead! Why would he try to walk away when he’d been exposed to the threat already just moments before? Now, suddenly, those scenes were no longer quite so funny. Now he suddenly didn’t feel so smart. “OH I DO LOVE PEOPLE MAGAZINE,” Frederica continued. “SAY, WHAT’S THAT?” “That there?” Edna said. “Let’s see...” She examined one of the many snacks hanging on the rack by the counter. “‘Corin Colin’s Raisin-free Trail Mix’.” “HAS IT GOT RAISINS IN IT?” “Uh, no, it doesn’t.” “IS IT GERMAN? I DON’T LIKE ANY OF THOSE GERMAN FOODS.” “Frederica, I don’t even know what you’re talking about. According to the package this was made in Cedar Falls, Wisconsin.” George didn’t know for how much longer he would have the power to stand. “Uh, listen, ladies?” he said at what he was sure was a high enough volume. Frederica was already talking over him. “WHAT HAS PEOPLE MAGAZINE BEEN SAYING?” she blared. “I THINK I SEE THAT NICE KIM KARDASHIAN ON THE COVER, BUT...” That was the last straw. There had simply been too many delays. The woman behind the checkout counter was of no help. She was just slouching there, staring intently at the little computer screen. It was understandable: she’d had to deal with this nuisance for less than a minute now whereas George didn’t feel that he had the facility to put up with it at all anymore. Desperate times call for desperate measures and this, if anything, was a problem of such magnitude that it had managed to blossom into an outright state of emergency. George looked around. There had to be something he could do. What do you know, he thought. That TV on display over there didn’t appear to be as, shall we say, unprotected as he would have expected. It was too good to be true. For once in his life what otherwise seemed the most useless of all procedures was going to serve a highly crucial purpose. For once perhaps he could turn one unbearable annoyance against another. How could the timing and conditions be so perfect? But he had to act fast! George wasn’t as swift a sprinter now as he had been all those years ago in the army and yet he remained much speedier than the average man. You almost wouldn’t have known what was going on before he had put down the screening and taken off like a rabbit through the brush. Within a few seconds the volume on the set was up all the way and the air was filled with the horrid strangled chirp of The Emergency Broadcast System. “EDNA, WHAT’S THAT?” Frederica said, although this time she was, mercifully, only barely audible. “IS SOMEONE USING ONE OF THOSE NEW INTERNET THINGAMAJIGS?” “Frederica, you idiot, computers haven’t made that sound in fifteen years! Now let’s just get the hell out of here!” Edna hollered as she herded her friend out of the door like a shepherd. It would have been hard enough work anyway had everyone else in the vicinity not been leaving too. Now the eyes of the woman behind the checkout counter finally met George’s own. He hadn’t really noticed it until now but these eyes were actually not an unpleasant sight. Nor was the rest of her. There was something dainty about this woman’s beauty; she almost had the look of a stereotypic Southern belle. And the anger now filling those narrow, hazel eyes somehow magnified the effect. It was such a shame he couldn’t have met her under other circumstances. “You,” she said in a gruff, almost masculine voice which was nowhere near as winsome as her appearance. “Get out of here right now before I call the cops!” It didn’t sound at all like a bad idea. George made haste out the door.
Posted on: Wed, 19 Jun 2013 05:31:42 +0000
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