"Weekly Grocery Trip"
Originally posted on Dreamwidth for LJ Idol Minor+. I'm cross-posting this here to LJ now because this is the piece that I'm planning using as the basis for most, if not all, of my entries for the upcoming LJ Idol: 3 Strikes. I may or may not come back to this character.
1,369 words. Approximate reading time: 6 minutes, 44 seconds.
It was 11:32 in the morning on Thursday when Maralyn left her home for her weekly grocery trip. She was two minutes behind schedule, which obviously made her a bit anxious. It meant everything to be on schedule, and she worried that she might not have enough time to get her food and get back home. Still, she had to make her best effort, because she needed food and had no other options.
She crossed her arms over her chest and hurried along the sidewalk toward the grocery, thankful that her house was normally only a five-minute walk away. Certainly she could still make it by 11:35 if she tried hard enough. While she walked briskly along her very familiar path, she let her eyes wander a bit, surveying the neighborhood.
Maralyn really enjoyed these Thursday walks; it was such a peaceful time of day. It felt good to be out in the open air, especially during the beginning of winter, when the air had a little bit of a chill and the leaves-little remnants of autumn-decorated the ground, not yet touched by the snow. Despite the fact that it was statistically more dangerous to be out during this time of year, Maralyn still looked for the beauty in her surroundings.
Her gaze moved from the ground up to the houses of her neighbors, and she thought she saw the door of one of the houses open just a crack. She shivered a bit and quickened her pace, wishing that her husband had accompanied her this time. She felt safe enough, but always had a slight tinge of trepidation every time he said he preferred to stay home (as it happened, his favorite television show, Captured, in which hundreds of contestants were locked in an underground bunker and performed humiliating feats while competing to stay in said underground bunker, aired on Thursdays from 11:00am to noon, and there were some weeks where Krystian just couldn’t pull himself away after the first half hour to join Maralyn on her grocery trip). Still, it was just Maralyn on the street, and she wouldn’t see another person until she made it to the grocer, so she knew she didn’t have too much to worry about.
A delivery drone flew overhead carrying a small box-no doubt a new VR headset for Angela, her neighbor three doors down-while playing a jaunty tune from tinny speakers. Maralyn found some comfort in that, as it had been a while since she’d been able to connect with Angela, since her VR headset had gone on the fritz a few weeks prior. Maybe Maralyn would finally be able to set a hangout date with Angela.
After leaving her neighborhood, Maralyn turned the corner and hurriedly continued onto the grocer, which she could see just around the bend. When she finally reached the door, she glanced down at her wrist and noted the time: 11:35. Elated that her quick pace had made up for her lateness, Maralyn smiled a bit to herself. She reached into her pocket and pulled out her phone, opened up the grocery app, and held up her identifying barcode to the scanner by the door. The double-doors slid open, and she stepped inside, being careful (as always) to stop on the first green square of the conveyor belt just inside the doors. After she was inside, the doors slid closed again, and Maralyn heard the comforting “click” of the lock to let her know that she was safely inside.
Exactly ten feet in front of her was Carmen, Maralyn’s “grocery buddy,” since their weekly shopping trips coincided with each other’s. She didn’t know too much about Carmen, since they lived in different neighborhoods and weren’t part of the same social circle, but Maralyn enjoyed seeing Carmen consistently every week. It was the consistencies in Maralyn’s life that really mattered to her. Carmen glanced back over her shoulder and blinked twice at Maralyn in greeting, and Maralyn blinked twice in return. Carmen turned her head back to face front, and the conveyor moved slowly forward.
At 11:38, the conveyor moved Maralyn to the front of the line. She held up her phone, still open to the grocery app, to the checkout scanner. The scanner read her barcode, and within ten seconds several bags emerged from the carousel beside her, containing everything that she had ordered on the app the previous day. She glanced toward the exit to see Carmen walking through the doors with her own groceries. Carmen again looked back and blinked twice. Maralyn returned the goodbye (all-purpose gestures like the double-blink were so convenient; it’s no wonder they’d become popular over the last few years) and grabbed her bags. After Carmen had disappeared from view, the conveyor pushed Maralyn gently toward the exit. She walked through the open doors, which closed and clicked behind her, and made her way back up the sidewalk toward her house.
By 11:43, she was over halfway back to the safety of her home, but stopped her walk short when she noticed a car on the road in front of her neighbor Angela’s house, and saw that Angela’s door was open. Maralyn’s heart dropped a bit when she thought of what was about to happen. She had seen this a few times before on the nightly news (and on the morning news and the news at noon, obviously), but had never been witness to it up close before.
Maralyn stayed still on the sidewalk as she knew to do; it was acceptable to be a few minutes late returning to your home with extenuating circumstances, and this definitely counted as extenuating circumstances. She certainly couldn’t risk going directly past Angela’s house until the threat had gone. She shifted her grocery bags to one hand, and used her free hand to check her face covering, making sure that it was properly adjusted, then watched as two people in head-to-toe sanitization suits carried a sedated woman out of the front door.
It must have been Angela, Maralyn reasoned, though she didn’t look very much like the Angela that Maralyn knew from their VR hangouts. The sanitization workers loaded Angela into the trunk of the car and closed it tightly, then one worker entered the driver’s side of the car and started the engine, while the second worker went to Angela’s front door, closed it, and pasted a large yellow notice on the front. As the second worker returned to the car, Maralyn glanced over and saw in bold black letters, “QUARANTINED-DO NOT ENTER” on the sign. Her gazed moved down a bit to the small package that had been left on the porch.
She shook her head and waited for the car to leave the area. She almost couldn’t believe that Angela was Diseased; but then again, she must have done something against the regulations set forth by the Health Authority. After all, keeping to the schedule was what was keeping everyone safe.
Maralyn made a mental note to not bother with setting up a hangout with Angela anymore (really, she couldn’t believe she had even been thinking about associating with someone like that) as she started walking back to her house. She glanced at her watch: 11:46. A few minutes late due to extenuating circumstances was one thing, but she didn’t want to end up like that horrible Angela, flaunting her disregard of the schedule. She broke into a light jog to get back to her house as quickly as possible, raced up the front stairs and hurried inside, slamming the door behind her.
The wind blew the leaves around gently as Samuel walked down the street on his way to the grocery. He could have sworn he heard the front door of a house a short way down and across the street, but that was of course impossible. It was 11:47 after all, which was inside his assigned weekly grocery slot. He adjusted his face covering and continued down the street toward the grocery, glancing nervously at the houses of his neighbors.