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  There were about five or so cars parked in this parking lot, despite the time being the early hours of the morning. I really didn’t think I needed butter and shampoo that badly, but since I was already awake so early, and this store was conveniently just about ten minutes from where I lived, I thought to myself, why not?

  A tall brick building - its dark maroon shades barely standing out from the darkness of the night, the waning moon hovering above it on the grayish sky, dimmed out by the parking lot’s bleary lights. Yet the elongated moonlit shadow of the building was apparent on the orange-lit asphalt, reaching out to me. Its Mid Atlantic architecture looked antiquated despite being a recent addition to the town, like it always belonged in here, like this city was always a part of this country since its colonial times, despite the fact that this city didn’t have more than a hundred years to its oldest structures. Its cross-gabled roof displayed a large analog clock with overshadowed, elongated fine hands noting that it was currently a quarter past 4 AM. Its carefully kept hedges just underneath the larger than life store windows and its carefully kept flower garden filled with wilted roses and blooming shadows both lined its outside but its automatic sliding door entrances and exit. It all exuded an upper middle class suburbia feel to it. The title read on stylized italics in a mildly lit red sign, not too harsh to not hurt the eyes, but bright enough to stand out from the darker wall, and I unsurely felt compelled on entering the building in a primeval level.

  Clicking the button on my keychain to turn on my car alarm and lock my doors, I curiously glanced into the store through its doors and couldn’t tell whether the store was really functioning, or if it only had all of its lights on by a mistake. I knew from the brand’s gloriously flourished subscription magazine I had not signed up for but yet still made its way to my doorstep every month- made with high quality paper and bearing photogenic generic yet chef-branded dishes and countless recipes that all conveniently used store brand only products, all printed in full colors- that most of their stores were 24 hour stores. I also knew they had a sushi class on Wednesdays and Saturdays at the local store with a real live chef, and multiple cooking courses where they could watch you from your laptop and on site. Lastly, they also had a drop-off ball pit for children, but not in this location. Here the store did not cater to abdicating parents.

  I walked towards the sliding doors, which opened up to me when I wasn’t even near its sensor. I could feel it beckoning to me, so I attended to it, stepping into the high ceiling store with the dark yet bright ambiance, all its overwhelming browns barely being lit by its high lights.

  Greeted by plants edible and inedible alike, the separation in between the produce and gardening sections were a mere imaginary division, envisioned by society and dictated by costumes. This is edible; that is not. These cherries will at most give you the runs if you indulge too far into them. These lilies will make sure you won’t survive until the morning. But they are all plant alike, right? Arrange your fruits in a bouquet, toss a poppy salad, you’re welcome to do both and all and any. I had come here for two items, butter and shampoo, I reminded myself. I can buy myself a new plant or a new vegetable another day. I wanted to move on, to the produce’s dismay, there are way too many healthy options for my unhealthy being. I will come back when I figure myself out, I promised the produce, but not for the plants because I had a brown thumb and would kill them.

  Leaving on empty promises, I wanted to move on to the next best thing. To my right I saw the endless rows of cashier aisles, filled to the brim with candies to tempt you, magazines to judge you, and healthy food options to empty your wallet. All but one were deserted, and that one had a never moving line of two people with semi-empty carts, but the cashier was out of sight and out of mind. To my left, the bakery section laid ahead. I chose the heartier direction.

  Walking around the bakery counter, multiple danishes, rolls, breads, pies minced and whole, and other baked goods from other days were spread out in a feast, their prices a bit too outrageous no matter how ornamented they seemed, and how wild their flavors were.

  “If you wait for another half hour, we will have fresh bagels right out of the oven!” A baker exclaimed from behind the counter as I glanced over the mostly empty shelves, but I wasn’t particularly interested on anything that looked too real.

  I glanced over the donuts, and the baker added, “Donuts will take another hour, we have yet to frost them. But you can wait forever, won’t you? There are some scones and cookies out already, if you want to look through the packages.”

  I looked over the cookie packs, their flavors ranging from Oatmeal Raisin Nut to Dark Matter, and as much as it was tempting, I wasn’t interested in nothing non-baryonic, nor baryonic to be honest. But I was quite amazed at their varieties. They truly have everything, huh. Take a cookie from the free cookie dispenser. I didn’t want, but I took. Those were for kids, and they were stale, and I hated chocolate chip cookies, but I was compelled to eat one by higher powers at play, so I obeyed.

  There were also multiple types of chocolate nearby, at a fancy small artisanal area that also had coffee for prices you would need to sell a kidney for, and further on was a buffet area, which I had read on their magazine about, its open hours being from 8 AM to 8 PM. But upon closer inspection, the buffet area seemed too pristine to have been touched by humanity’s dirt. Its virginal state rejected humanity’s tendency to defacing anything pure, and I questioned if it ever had been open on its lifetime. Food may be human-made, but it elevates itself above its impure origins. Ah, probably self-cleaning, I guessed. I saw from the corner of my eye a glimpse of some looming shadow over at the balcony on the unreachable second floor of the store, eyes glaring at me for attempting to approach the buffet, and when I met their eyes with mine, they were gone, dissipated like smoke on air, and I knew then, that was the manager. Best to leave the buffet area alone, to its pristine state.

  I followed down past the bakery, and found myself in the fish section. Shrimp, the lobster tank with sparring arthropods, oysters a-plenty, and then my eyes laid upon a bass on its icy seat. I stared at the fish, its glossy eye and mine, fighting to see who could see through the other’s soul. The fish looked away eventually, overcome with self-consciousness and embarrassment upon me winning the mental match, but I wasn’t going to take it home. I didn’t like fish, I thought, it stunk.

  “I don’t like you either,” the fish commented, “and you also don’t smell like roses.”

  Of course I don’t smell like roses, I thought, I’m not a plant, and left the dead fish behind, to lie on its ice.

  Arriving on the meats section, I noticed my dead neighbor Maggie was also there, dazed and lost, sporting her usual waist-high cargo pants and collared shirt, walking a slow path with her shopping cart. I also somehow had found myself steering a shopping cart, but couldn’t recall how did I get it or when.

  “Hey Maggie,” I said, but she didn’t hear me. Lost souls are doomed to penitence in the back aisles, I heard, and nodded sheepishly in agreement. Others walked down the bend the aisle went on the back of the store, eyes and expressions empty and disoriented. A couple discussed in a low voice about their choices of fancy cheese, but I wasn’t interested in listening into what sin paired well with stilton.

  Look at the meat sales. I looked, but they were not of my interest. Most of them were small discounts on their higher than normal prices. They are cheap. They were not cheap. They are sales, they are cheap. They were cheap. I looked over them again. I saw a tray of mysterious meatballs sitting on a tray that went to the oven. As long as the seasoning hid whatever source of the meat, I guessed I would have been fine. I had other things to take as well, though. What was that again?

  Butter. That’s just past the fancy cheese, I thought as I passed by the couple, who both stopped to glare at me for declining to partake in the sales, and upon picking up the butter from the fridges, I noticed that milk was at an actually absurdly cheap price, so absurd you would not believe it was milk. It was not milk, was it?

  Some questions were best not answered. I agreed as I took a jug and didn’t notice the sale was exclusive to their shoppers’ club program. How long had it been since I arrived? It felt like it had been forever. I looked at my wrist watch, it pointed to 4:15, but my cell phone said it was nearing 5 AM already. I looked back at my watch, and now it told me it was 5:30. How? Some questions were best not answered. I thought of going back for those bagels, but that was an entire lifetime ago. But next, the shampoo. I gazed upon the entrance of the labyrinth of aisles, and wandered into it without a plan. There was a pharmacy somehow, within the supermarket, a large sectioned off area that watched over the nearby aisles, but I could swear I had not seen any area like that when I entered, and was lost in my mental map of the place. Some questions were best not answered. I followed on, trying to find my way through the endless shelves of products.

  An intermediate hallway in between aisles led me to the area with perfumes and makeup, a closed up counter had posters for in-store makeup and hair styling, and makeup classes with real clowns; Its pictures featured several men and women dressed in proper comical attire and showing how to use palettes and brushes. I didn’t think of it much, but at least I was glad those clowns were surely real. There was a shelf with a display of four perfumes you could test out. I sprayed the first perfume on my wrist. It was too sweet. I sprayed the second one on my other wrist. It was too savory. I sprayed the third one on my forearm, and it was too sour and dour with the decrepit state of society and the lack of purpose on life, with the capitalistic fatalism of the country, and with the loss of values and morals of people. I didn’t try the fourth one, it seemed broken and bitter, and I didn’t have the mental capacity to handle that at that moment. I found the sliced bread aisle before the soap aisle, but I wasn’t sure I was meant to be using the decimal system for counting how many aisles I had gone through anymore, or if I had to be working with fractals at that point. But there were all shapes and types of sliced bread, even non-sliced like naan and pita and tortilla, and not really breads like tortilla chips. Also, they had the challenging 20 seed, multi-fruit, everything but the kitchen sink variety of sliced bread that was sold at a slightly more expensive price because being healthy is meant to weight on your pocket. I got some white bread because it was on sale. I love this place, I heard from somewhere I didn’t notice, but didn’t really resonate with it. As I turned into the shampoo aisle, finally, my favorite song started playing from unseen speakers. You love this place. I still couldn’t agree, this felt like a hassle of a place, too much, for no good reason. The song was cut off halfway for some menial announcement to someone inexistent in the store, and when it returned they started playing a boring song.

  Walking down the never ending shampoo aisle, my eyes went cross trying to figure out which one, from the literal hundreds of shampoos, was my usual brand and type. When I finally found it, I faced the scare of a price it was. Wasn’t there anything on sale? Suddenly there were no sales on sight. There was no one on sight. But on the corners of my eyes I caught a glimpse or two of some people on black or brown store uniform shirts, always out of my sight whenever I turned to look. Suddenly I didn’t feel as welcome as before. Maybe you shouldn’t insult what you cannot comprehend. I felt a sudden urge to run, but that was against store regulations. How did I know that? You know. I fast-walked my way through the aisles, left, right, left, left, straight ahead. Coffee, coffee beans, beans, chickpeas, canned chicken, cans of jam, jams of can, cancan music CDs, gift wrapping and overpriced franchise plushies.

  The frozen food aisles were populated by cargo pants women with half-empty carts, staring at Lean Cuisines and Italian ice creams. Each one of them turned to me whenever I passed near them, and I grew more and more conscious of my own fashion choices and for not having picture perfect hair. Left again, and past the fridge that stored an entire car wheel and a glaring reindeer, into the room temperature aisles again.

  Left, right, left, right, up, down, up, down, stop, wait, but why wasn’t toilet paper near the personal cleaning items, and instead it sat near the juice aisle? At least there was finally a visible price checker, finally. I could see how much was the organic green condensed paper for. Too much? Too much. Too bad. Oh, well. I guess I would have to pick the store brand. Shoppers who shopped for store brands without the shoppers’ club rewards would suffer the addition of one gallstone to their gallbladder, per store brand item, upon arriving at the cashier for checkout. Oh, well, it was too late for me to put that back, I had already gotten myself lost on the next aisle.

  Eyes watched me on every corner, and figures could be seen approaching me when I turned around a corner. What time was it? My cell phone displayed 1̸͍͍̮͈̣̰̮̖̩̱̊̅̎͜:̴͇̅̒̀̀̽̄̑̚͝͝͝6̸̨̛̉͐̈̀̐͑͋́̐͝5̷̛̯̳̘̭͇͔͇̭̫̗̣̏̂͂͂̿̿͠͝ ̷̡̻̜̦͖̥̳̞̠̩͋̎̈́̓͛ͅͅZ̶̟̘̘̤̟̏̏̅̽͆́̏̈̈́͛͜M̵̫̜̩͖̲̻̃̏̌̌͋̇ͅ, while my watch told me it was just before 7. I needed to find my way out, I was going to be late for life.

  After passing by the indefinite aisle of hipster brews and of local wines that were both crowded with age progressions of the same people in different frustrated stages of their lives, I finally reached the heart of the store, where I was greeted by a procession of dispensers filled with an assorted variety.

  Chocolate rings, jelly creatures, yogurt snacks, nut crusts, other crusts, termites, paper clippings, crackers, dried fruits, dried skin, credit card information snippets, frozen methane hail, strawberry wafers, little white lies you can tell your family, in between other items all were stocked halfway on the dispensers, each plastic container having a neat little scoop and a not neat tangled cord to tie up the scoop.

  But nothing was as normal and yet as mortifying as the one I found standing at the very heart of the candy section, overlooking containers of salty pistachios and dried up dreams. With hair hellfire red and a grin as greeting as the neighbor’s snarling dog, the one who I presumed from the back picture of the magazines could only be the owner of this franchise looked at me with deep contempt and faux sympathy, and broke into a monologue I could only hear within me.

  You know, my father’s first store was opened with his hard earned savings he had been gathering since his childhood. Work was hard in his times, he spent most of the time since his early childhood serving entities who were too eldritch for most to comprehend, but yet, as cruel as they were, they were fair, and paid his share. I, myself, have been working on my father’s first store since the day I could speak, learning the ways on how to lure and manage souls, and keep them eternally. I looked around, noting the closing in movement of the store workers finally catching up to me, and yet I couldn’t leave his presence.

  You know, the supermarket is a physical manifestation of irony itself. All of those who seek nourishment, physical, emotional and spiritual, come into here, minds and hearts and stomachs open to me, looking for the best offers and the next best trend, spending their time and energy so to seek fulfillment in some level, exciting themselves over sales and prospects of having some strange or bizarre craving be satisfied, and yet, you all give into this place, letting it digest you away, collecting your energy and money, and having you come back here, again, and again, and again, drawn into here like fruit flies over some cents of difference for a specific item, only to get trapped into this flytrap. I don’t even need to force anyone to worship and flock to this place, you do all the work yourselves, all I need to do is invest some money initially to have the perfect atmosphere, print some fancy looking pamphlets and maintain the needlessly large amount of options to give you an illusion of free will, and you will be back for the same items over and over, to the same place over and over, no matter how expensive it looks in comparison to other places, no matter how fake the illusion of choices is, given how off the wall most of the non-normal choices are in all of my products.

  But why? Is it just convenience? Is it familiarity? Agape for a brand? I could hear the others echo the same thought, either that, or they just chanted “Can I help you?” as they approached us. I thought I could see them now, but only on my peripheral vision, as dictated by the unknown rules, and I really wanted to escape there. But he blocked my way, physically and mentally, and I just couldn’t go back to the maze, not when they were all closing in. No matter what, you can’t help yourselves but to trap yourselves into here, and those who make out, always speak praises and carry our keychain ring card.

  Your souls have already been devoured by this place, and I didn’t have to force anyone’s hand for it. Even those who resist it, who decry all the values in place which allow for such level of devotion to a place, either because of ideological standings or of religious beliefs eventually succumb to my illusions and are left to wander the aisles of my supermarket. All I need is to sell an image of me and my brand which are compatible with their opinions, no matter how dissonant it may sound. That’s why I cater to all, so I can draw any in.

  In a bout of courage, or fear, I broke off from his hypnosis and started off hurrying past the candy aisle, but he still watched and talked to me psychically.

  You may resist now, since you know the truth, but trust me, you too will be drawn back into this place. Even the most logical of your species can’t help themselves but to fall for the instinctive charms of this celebration of gluttony. So I know, you will be back. We just need to wait. Despite hurrying on a direction I had not gone before, I felt like I had seen these products before, books and gift cards, and then basic grains, like rice, beans, and evil eyes. That’s why we serve well, so you may serve us, always. The shoppers I passed by all glared at me, but the ones who were surely following me were the ones in the brown shirts, and I knew I just had to dodge them when I could. I had all that I needed, I had all that I needed, no time to pay attention anymore to what minute discernments in between different yet equal products of a myriad of brands.

  Right, right, right, follow a maze solving algorithm, right, right, I felt more awake than ever, with all eyes on me, I just needed to find that exit. I would do anything- Everything- All the things- As long as it meant I was out of there as soon as possible-

  “Are you joining our Shoppers’ Reward Club?” I was at the cashier somehow, and the woman in a black shirt was staring at me impatiently. I looked around, somehow the strange store looked more normal than ever. What was I doing again? How did I get there? When did I get there?

  The cashier, mildly annoyed at my dazed silence, insisted on an answer. “Excuse me, are you joining our Shoppers’ Club? We have daily sales for members, and our point system can help you get exclusive products and even run for raffles in a monthly basis.” I couldn’t think if that was worth my time or not.

  You did say ‘anything’... I did, didn’t I? I did make it to the cashier after all, but that was unfair, my hand had been forced. My stomach dropped at the prospect of going back, though. She glared judgingly at me for taking too long to respond.

  “Uh- Sure, I guess.”

  “Great!” She took a piece of printed paper from a drawer and handed it to me promptly, along with a pen. “Just give us your name, telephone number, email address and living address, and sign your name at the bottom here too.” And so I did willingly.

  Upon exiting the store, I noted its tendril handed clock said it was barely past 5 AM. I checked my two clocks, and they said the same. Huh.