Silver

A group of 20-something-year-old women entered a silver 2004 all-wheel-drive Jeep Grand Cherokee. There were at least four of them in that one car, and all were identical. I convinced myself that they were sisters. Or that is what it appeared like as I ambled past them on the dinged sidewalk towards the CVS Pharmacy's automatic slide doors. The walkway to the Pharmacy felt misplaced. It felt like you were walking towards the electric signals on the edge of the sidewalk, waiting for your turn as a pedestrian to walk alongside the street legally.

The way the sun illuminated the cars was unnerving. I felt reluctant to go into a CVS on such an operative summer day, and that more or less was my only purpose for the day. Seeing people clasping onto the blanket of summer made me frail. It is nauseating to see people in enjoyment and preparing to make regrettable decisions that they will laugh at in the next five years. Depending on the resilience of the individual, it may abate in two years. 

The women were dressed in clothes for ventures that did not appear like my kind of fun. I mean, what even is my kind of fun? My mind was so fixated on the girls that I did not notice that I was within the eyesight of the cashier. I was restless as I stood in line. There was a gloom within the store, and I knew I did not want any part of that.

As I waited in line for the register, I stumbled upon, “Secret meeting exposed!” in a celebrity gossip magazine that a middle-aged ratherish obese woman who eats TV dinners would read “to keep up with the times”. The magazine had a picture of Jeffrey Epstein and Bill Clinton. “Oh yeah,” I remembered, “I still haven’t finished that docuseries.” I thought. There was an obvious reason for that, and I knew that at that moment, that would be the last time I would ever think of Jeffrey Epstein. The sick bastard and I were right, too.

If you ask me, I simply think magazines are disgusting invention. I mean we would rather kill our oxygen source for a celebrity gossip blurb about Britney Bitch? Who cares about the Kardashians? And why is it so expensive to go back to school?

“Hello... Are you ready?” the cashier asked.

“Hi, yeah, I ordered pictures,” I said as I approached the counter.

“Okay, what is the last name?” she asked. “Silver,” I enunciated. I think I even raised my eyebrows, believing that if I showed her my full stretched-out face, it would help her with the pronunciation of my name. Another one of my incognizant social cues.

The cashier left and attended to the box of printed photos and scrolled for my name. I wondered if I was being an inconvenience to her. How many people came into this pharmacy to pick up photos? What are those people doing with those photos? How old are the people who print out those photos? Is photo printing an outdated hobby? There's a lot in that box. What do these people behind me think I am doing with these photos? Why am I getting embarrassed? Tangential thinking. Is my life so boring that my tangential thinking is a train of questions about photos I pick up from a CVS Pharmacy? Do other people have mundane thoughts like me?

“Do you, by chance, know what kind of pictures they were?” she returned with a face of uncertainty.

“Yeah! I can check.” I said gaily. 

When she asked what kind of photos they were, I was not sure what she meant. Isn't a photo a photo? But, of course, my phone stalled, and I could not load any sort of identifiable information. Anything like a  serial or confirmation number. 

Then I figured it may be under the abbreviation Sil. My pseudonym. My pseudonym's last name. My actual last name is Gray, but Silver is the name I use for publication. It's edgier. I almost use the names interchangeably, which is an unwise way of keeping my anonymity.

“Oh, ” I said, embarrassed for having her look for something nonexistent. “It might be under Sil,” I said. She nodded in confirmation, “Yeah, that's what I am seeing.” At least she was kind.

She rang up my photos and put them in a plastic bag without asking. She was wasting plastic, but I did not dare to retract her service. I did not care enough. It was probably her attempt in bringing some kind of light into her depressive shift. I collected my 4×8 prints, and I left. As soon as I made it into the roadway between the store and the automatic slide doors, I was confronted by new-timer parents, “Woof," I thought. "Not my idea of fun either.” I walked out taking a very deep breath. A breath to shake off any sort of omen I might've ingested in that store. By the time I left the pharmacy, the Jeep was gone. Then, I got into my car, and I was gone.

As I settled in later, I remembered that it was Friday night because I heard some apartment tenants screeching in the language of intoxication, and that night sounded like Watermelon Smirnoff. It was a relatively safe and sloppy night. It was nowhere near the night that reeked of a burning cross and horse excrement due to an occupant screeching something so profound that it turned my blood cold. 

I remembered feeling subdued by my lack of plans for the umpteenth time in a row. 

For the rest of that night, I wondered what those women I saw in the pharmacy's parking lot were doing. Were they drunk? Were they high? Were they safe? Were they having sex? Or arrested? Kidnapped and left in a ditch? Did I envy them? What did I wish I was doing instead?