White Walls

White walls, silver trimming. This super store has everything. White shelves, bright lights, this super store is electrifying. Cream tiles under your feet reflect images from frozen food doors opening and shutting, shopping carts in motion turning and wheeling, as the constant flickering from the almost dead light bulbs above brings me a slight panic and uneasy feeling.  Why am I here shopping alone this late at night? Why does the old man of a manager keep talking over the speaker phone about great prices, half offs, and coupons for deli combos and party accessories?

Bathroom walls light grey with a rough finish.  One mirror looking back at your flush face in a bathroom much too big for such little space needed.  The toilet sits alone like a sail boat out to sea, empty and small, navigation is a must to find the door back to what is considered reality. Long hallway with bare skin, nothing but white paint and a much too low water fountain guide me back to the store, one with a name I have still never heard before.  Road trips can lead you to cracks of life you never knew existed, and the crazy part is once I leave this place it will continue existing, like nothing ever happened, like I never got lost and needed to use the restroom.

Sneakers squeak from a newly mopped floor from the janitor the night before.  Adventures on every isle, as the carts turn and people smile.  No talk, just a shoppers denial, as we buy more junk, plastic straws and buy one, get one frees... quiet calm music from high above the heavens keep us at ease.  I am surprised the store lets you leave at all, as the clerks watch with moving eyes, peaking and keeping an eye on when we decide to awkwardly say, "goodbye" followed by a fake smile, half wave, and an awkward sigh.  I wonder if a piece of them leaves with me, as they watch me exit, or maybe they like it... beats me.  In circles we shop, rats in a maze, deals make us buy as there are no windows to see the outside.  The night sky darker than the eye in the sky, following you around the store as if it has never seen a human being before tonight.  The dark from the two front skinny doors make the ice coolers by the red lottery ticket machines glow like snow, as if they were a portal to another super store, all connected like a damn worm hole. The longer you shop, the further you go, the brighter the lights, the less you know.  Brain washed by pictures of farms with cows, chickens on hills, and smiling kids drinking Koolaid while mom sleeps well overdosed on Nyquil.

"Do you want your receipt?" No thanks. "Okay, have a great night!"

White Walls 2016