Bathysphere

A story about a woman buying groceries.

On the bus Jossi sat next to a frail-looking boy who smelled like wet newspaper. When she got off at the stop by the shopping center he was engrossed watching a video on his phone of a muscular man trying to choke himself with a belt in what looked like a public bathroom. He held the camera one hand and the belt in the other. She walked across the wide parking lot to the supermarket. Beneath her feet, wires carried secret messages. Molten metals slowly churned. She went inside and did her shopping.

There was no line at the farthest checkout so she walked down to it. Its position in the store made it feel isolated it from the others. There was only a blank wall behind it. There was no monitor on which she could watch herself be watched. The echo of squeaking carts and corporate radio seemed to recede. It was like something had left its hollowed-out cocoon propped up in the corner, and she had stepped into it. She put her groceries down on the conveyor belt: head of lettuce, six tomatoes, three cucumbers, a bag of clementines, a bag of chips, butter, olive oil, lamb chops. The boy behind the register started scanning the items. The produce had no barcode, so he had to type them into the system. When he saw the lamb chops, he stopped and picked them up.

“You know, they cut these things out of the lamb while it’s still alive,” he said.

“What?”