Suppertime

A Story

BY CLAIRE DUNNINGTON

Click to see full size
Illustration by John Gruen
Bird

5:00 p.m., Tuesday afternoon. Woman, 76, enters the grocery store. Short white hair, pale skin, yellow cotton dress with blue flowers. No purse.

I don't have anything to buy today. I don't need to get a cart. I am here for suppertime. My shoes make a nice click meeting the tile. What do they think of my dress? I wanted to choose the right one. These are new shoes. Yes. I look all right. My hair is washed and my face is clean and today my skin isn't so transparent. No one will be stopping to watch my veins rise to the surface. There are bright lights everywhere here; everyone here is awake. I'm glad that I came. It is better to know.

Aisle 3, 5:03 P.M.

There are rows of canned peanuts with men grinning at me off the metallic blue packaging. There are bags of corn chips tossed together and caved inwards and half-filled with air. Sourdough pretzel sticks. These are foods for in-between times. I am. But now I am only here in this store and I know that I am here. I remember these pretzels. You can stack them on one another like cabins out of logs. Then suck the salt off or bite straight in and hear it crunch. My teeth-I can feel them begin to fall out. Just this back one but soon the rest will follow. I can feel it creaking in my mouth now but soon I will hold all of them in my hand. Is it the first or the second time? They are rocking in my gums; these hard foods won't do. I cannot walk fast enough to leave their silence.

Aisle 8, 5:11 P.M.

No foods here. These are for small ones. Baby things. Plastic diapers boxed in tight wrapping and rattles that tremble when people walk by and white powders and the smells of before. Their mothers might think these are things for after but it is really before. They won't understand after until their children have children and then they will pretend. Three kinds of shampoo that don't sting. I don't want to look at these but I will not rush. There is time to see everything. Hard packets of gel for when the teeth pierce the gums. They don't make those for people whose teeth are rocking out of their heads. For that there are things harder than plastic and yellowing and the smells of the old. I will never have those but my mouth is dark and closed away from the air. Mouths of babies are new enough to gum anyone's fingers. My mouth has a smell like decay and I can't walk away from it.

Aisle 12, 5:19 P.M.

These numbers don't mean anything. There is a one and there is a two and both are black because the rest is white and that way we can see them. You can put them in order and that keeps track of you but not forever. Soon you realize they are all the same and let them fall wherever they see fit. These aisles are also the same. Every aisle is every other aisle and you can put them in order if you want but I won't today. You can make these numbers go up or down if you walk different directions but some numbers you can't make go down and if you don't want them to go up you have to let them be all the same. The only numbers that matter are the first and last. Here they think the order is important because people have to find things, so it is 1 through 14. I know where things are but I am not going in order. I am walking up and down but not directly through the rows because I am making a path. If I went in order other people could trace it but this part only I know.

Aisle 2, 5:26 P.M.

This aisle is boxes of hair coloring with women with one eye showing and bright skin, bristling brushes hanging upside-down from hooks, mirrors. I am looking for a mirror big enough to put my face in so I can make sure everything is right. Yes; no strays from white hair, eyes blue, bird face. I won't look at my teeth. My hair was brown once but once doesn't matter now because no one can see once. Once is almost a number so it doesn't matter. It isn't first and it isn't last and no one could say if it was closer to either one. Today's date is June 9, 2003 and that matters because it is still here and once is already gone. June 9, 2003 will be once for a lot of people but today is important to me. This tile is like the mirrors and I can see myself there. I can see myself there, and there, and all across the floor.

Aisle 9, 5:37 P.M.

Too many people for this space and they are making me tired. They want the chocolates lining the walls and stacking flat on top of themselves. I can smell it, nauseating sweet, through the shiny paper. This could be the last thing to rot my teeth but I don't want to eat right now. It is almost suppertime but not yet. That woman passed by me without looking. She doesn't remember me yet but she will remember the walking by and it will be more important when she remembers than it was when it happened. I can feel her footsteps pounding in my chest. There are sixteen cans of hot cocoa on the shelf. There are four boxes of candy. I have two eyes and twelve pairs of ribs. I was born in Des Moines, Iowa. Today is June 9, 2003.

Aisle 4, 5:44 P.M.

If I had time I would count all of the cereals even though I know it doesn't matter. I would give them numbers and I would remember the last one because the last one is what you remember and even if I say the numbers all don't mean anything I know the last one does. It may not be the best one but best doesn't mean anything anymore either. No one will know that for me and even if I told them I couldn't be sure they would remember. The first place was Des Moines, Iowa, and they will remember that. The best place I ever knew was the ocean but it is the worst place to have as the last. It can move you around after and then you will never know exactly where was the last place. This is why it is better to choose. That way you know. This is a good place; there are bright lights and the floors are hard and don't move. There will even be a number and for once (which usually doesn't matter) a number (which usually doesn't matter) will be important. The ocean

Aisle 5, 5:47 P.M.

loses Bodies and even if we don't need them it is important to know where they end up or the forever will be lost and there will be no last. This is the last one this is Aisle Five I have five fingers on my right hand and I am clutching the side of the door. It is cold in here near the ice cream and my skin is cold the people have stopped opening and closing the doors and are pinwheeling toward me. That young man has dropped his broom and it must be cold on the tile which is very cold and hard. I am wearing a yellow dress with violets and have white hair and old bones and that is the who. It is June 9th, 2003. The where is the grocery store and I came here because it was suppertime and because I wanted to make sure I would know. The lights were above and bright but now it's dark and I can hear the beeping of the checkout machines getting slower and slower and the people are getting closer and closer but I don't know why.

Claire Dunnington

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