Or if not lucky, at least in the mood for some fiction…
The Australian Writer’s Centre sets the Furious Fiction challenge on the first Friday of the month and writers have 55 hours to write no more than 500 words. This month the goal was: 1) start the story with a two word sentence, 2) set it in a supermarket and 3) have something breaking. You can read the winning and shortlisted entries on the AWC website.
Here’s my 500 words:
LUCKY’S
‘No Credert.’
That sign makes me twitch every time I walk into Lucky’s Holesale Supermarket. Don’t worry, the ‘holesale’ bugs me too, but at least the rusty ghost of a ‘W’ is visible on the corrugated iron. The other, hand-written, sign is taped to the back of the cash register.
First time I saw it, I swear I flinched.
“Listen,” I said to the woman leaning on the counter. “That’s not how you spell credit.”
The badge on her blouse said her name was Shirl.
Shirl said, “I know.”
“Then…” I gestured at the sign.
She looked at me through ice-pale, unblinking eyes.
“Some people like to have something to complain about.”
I thought about turning around and walking out, but I didn’t want to burn my bridges too early. The next nearest shop was the petrol station six blocks away and they charged like wounded bulls. I was renting between a sprawling industrial estate and a fetid, snake-filled swamp. I’d need my bridges when that damn swamp flooded.
So I nodded, grabbed a trolley and headed into the first aisle.
It was like no supermarket I’d ever seen. Industrial shelving lined one wall of a big, ugly warehouse and most of the floor space was taken up with water-damaged pallets. Perched on top were boxes of loose-leaf liquorice tea.
Three litre jars of dill pickles.
Blood pressure monitors.
Packs of toddler training nappies.
Tinned brawn.
Souvenir spoons.
Cheap, sure. But none of it made sense.
At the end of the aisle the stink of rotting seafood slapped me. Four chest freezers stood reeking against the hot corrugated iron. A sloughed snakeskin fluttered, caught on the wheels of the nearest freezer. I gagged and swore.
“Silly, isn’t it, putting them against the western wall?”
An old lady emerged from the next aisle, clutching a wire basket which held three tins of baked beans and a blood pressure monitor.
“I never buy their fish,” she confided, “but that’s not why we come here is it?”
“Why do we come here?” I was genuinely curious.
“Because one day we’ll find what our heart desires.”
She sighed, smiled and drifted into the next aisle.
Mad, I figured.
I was halfway down aisle two, digging through tinned beans for the extra cheese variety, when I heard her cry out. I pushed between pallets piled high with toilet paper and novelty lawn ornaments, sending a ceramic panda crashing to the floor.
“Are you alright?” I gasped.
She held something against her chest which lit her face like she cradled a star.
“I am now. It’s what I’ve always wanted.”
She sailed off towards the checkout, leaving me to push pieces of broken panda under the pallet with the side of my shoe.
“Got what you want?” Shirl said when I wheeled my trolley up.
“Uh, sure.” I gave my gleanings a dubious look.
She cracked a slow smile and said, “Maybe next time.”
Maybe.
I guess that’s why I keep coming back to Lucky’s.