A Prior Eye

Scavenging to the local Publix so a magazine line featured a Minecraft cover, captioned as “The Game That Captured The World” or some other dramatic match. Light fixtures sparsely flickered, whether due to some automatic electricity savings or because the custodial spirits of twenty years lining the aisles signal to the remaining nightcrawlers the perpetuity by which the Grocery Store stitches together civilization. One could hear the whisper of a 2005 highschool senior suggesting it’s time to leave.

Checkered floor, frozen foods familiar though one shall no longer indulge — staring from end corner to corner in a typical squarish layout so it seemed so shrunken. Each employee of each department earnestly checking off their closing list, threading right past, shelving and laser focused while the last fifty years of service workers follow as afterimage echoes.

Bagging self-checkout and through the exit into a familiar heat now rising, though tempered as night provides, so one passes the prior Blockbuster down the block. Gutted and hollowed for some food establishment, but it seemed there were phantom headlights every third parking space and some debating if it’s time to check out Click because they enjoyed Happy Gilmore well enough. That while we’re here may as well rent 1080° Snowboarding and finally beat the campaign.

Rub the eyes and it’s back to dark. All dark. There are no more cars. It’s almost 10 after all, and most the stores are closed. But I see a few laughing while waiting for their fast food order to complete.

In the same way I see Blockbuster in a daze, or a Publix in its prime, maybe they’ll hearken back to this day when the fast food chain closes twenty years later.

What’s hung in a forgotten history is the normal for them, until they write these same words, maybe.