Sunday Morning

It was an early Sunday morning and I was buying groceries from the sleepy checker. I looked up at the self checkout line. A woman of indeterminate age with long black hair and wearing large black glasses was buying a four pack of mini bottles of wine and some Robitussin cough medicine.

She turned toward me, staring, then up to the ceiling. Her face was vacant. She just stood there. She couldn’t get the self check out to work. I think she pushed a help button but no help was ever coming in this store. She just stood there and didn’t move.

For a moment it looked like she was going to pop open the wine and cough syrup and get it going right there.

I paid my bill. I looked up and she was gone. The check out was still trying to process her purchase but she hadn’t waited. She had walked out of the store with her goods and onto the streets of Portland to begin her Sunday.