Sodium Benzoate …?

Red Dye # 5 …?

I let out a strangled sigh placing the can of ‘tomato soup’ back onto the shelf. Was it really that absurd of a concept to wish to find tomato soup containing -god forbid- real tomatoes?

My rule of thumb: never eat something which you could barely pronounce. Hence, the reason why I, Jasmine Marino, was in the supermarket at nine-o-clock at night still looking for real tomato soup.

To-ma-to … easy syllables, pronounceable, therefore also edible. Why could no one else see the logic in this? I turned into the next aisle. A sign worthy of Las Vegas dangled down from the ceiling blaring the words ‘Baking Goods’ at me. Yeah, as if a third year university student had nothing better to do than spend Thursday nights baking chocolate chip muffins. My stomach gave a hungered rumble at the thought, and I mentally cursed at the picture of a bubbly blonde holding a tray of cookies on the front of a box. I was leaning absently against the handle of the cart, pushing it as the wheels seemed to lead themselves through the aisles of the store. My flip flops were the source of the only sounds echoing against the mop-sodden tiles of the store, and I had rolled the ends of my grey sweatpants up to my knees letting the small breeze blow around my calves. My thumbs were poking out of the small holes I had cut especially for them in my long-sleeved shirt and the very loose curls of my dark hair were knotted into a lopsided bun atop my head. Pretty picture I’m sure, I remarked sarcastically catching sight of my distorted reflection on the side of a steel toaster advertised for sale. My skin was tanned, god bless those Italian genetics, and grey eyes courtesy of my mother’s genuine North American lineage.

Yes, yes in my total and complete vanity of analyzing myself on the side of a toaster I honestly did not notice my cart rolling down the aisle on its own accord. And when I did notice it finally I barely had time to emit a small squeak, let alone streak after it to stop it before it …

CRASH!

I cringed watching as a pyramid of perfectly stacked cans swayed for a split second before literally all crumpling in simultaneous slow and fast motion to the ground, spurting red from the ones which exploded when hitting the ground. I took a few steps back running to end of the aisle, in the opposite direction I might add and peeking around the corner. Someone was coming … in a uniform … eep. The sound of the obliterated cans rang across the store and my cart stood innocently in the middle of the mess, as if daring me to come retrieve it so I would be caught red-handed (literally, the cans had spurted - wait for it - tomato soup, over the floors and ‘Caution: Wet’ signs) for causing the mess.

My first comprehendible thought: Shit, I should get out of here!

And that is when my legs decided to run, my brain urging and giving directions as my struggled to keep my flip flops on, weaving through the aisle. I could see the red mess leaking into the next aisle, and I tried to struggled to keep my pace casual as the same man in uniform strode past me, towards the mess. Would they do fingerprint checking? Surely they would not make such a big deal out of it …, it was only tomato soup after all … I gulped turning another corner quickly, almost 40 cans worth of tomato soup.

Shit. Shit. Shit.

Where was the damned exit anyways? I looked up seeing the black, spherical eye of a camera swiveling around the vicinity of the store and ducked into the Pharmacy.

Spill on Aisle 9. Spill on Aisle 9.

The voice of a man echoed throughout the store and I squeaked, resisting the urge to duck behind a another cart lying there. Alright so maybe I was slightly paranoid. My excuse? I was going on about 4 hours of sleep and three chocolate chip cookies. So sue me.

“We have a spill on Aisle 9. I’m thinking its those kids again - no Larry, there’s a cart pushed right into the middle of it - yeah I‘m getting Josie to check the cameras right now,” I jumped in the air as another man in an employee uniform strode past me, muttering into his black, very foreboding looking walkie-talkie of doom!

SHIT! My word choice of the day. For someone in the forensics and criminology program my vocabulary was deteriorating drastically in times of panic. They were checking cameras. If I didn’t haul my sorry butt out of there in the next ten minutes I would be mopping up my world-have-been dinner, instead of eating it. I know I had wanted tomato soup desperately, but hey, no one was that desperate.

Chancing another look from behind the aisle I sped out and into the open, feeling so exposed and yet slightly Charlie’s Angels-esque. Oh god, I was paranoid, incoherent and now I could add movie dork to my list of ever-growing attributes. Perfect.

“That her?”

My breathing quickened and I looked back to see the same two men in uniform whom I had passed earlier standing at the end of the aisle which I was crossing staring right at me.

I did the only thing which sprang into my Charlie’s Angels filled mind at that point: ran. Quickly sidestepping an old woman with a walker I mad a wild jump towards a cart heading out of the store, flinging myself up and into it, and on top of a few bags of groceries. I looked over my shoulder and saw the bewildered face of a man looking back at me. The cart was moving forwards, and for a split second I thought he was helping me escape, until I noticed his frame growing smaller and realized the cart was rolling on its own accord and straight towards a rack of magazines. I shielded my face with my hands hearing the metallic crash of the cart rolling onto its side, me lying sprawled on the ground like some demented rag doll, my head throbbing as it hit the tiles. I didn’t even have a chance to open my tearing eyes before a flurry of magazines flew onto me, covering me like some pathetic tabloid blanket.

I groaned rolling onto my side, pushing myself up with one arm and rubbing the back of my head with the other. I felt someone grab my elbow and hoist me up so I was steady on my feet, and opened my eyes to see the two burly employees, their eyes flashing menacingly from me to the man standing at my side.

He gave a grunt before rubbing his temple. “I think you two should leave.”

“But…” the man beside me spluttered looking meekly down at his crushed groceries.

I felt a pang of guilt, which grew into fear at the menacing looks the two employees were shooting at me, mostly.

“Leave.” They said, grabbing our elbows and steering us from the store like children. I was dragged out quietly, as I found my tongue really would grant me more embarrassment than that which I had already sustained.

And I did not even dare look at his face … him, being the man whose groceries I had just crushed, smashed into a magazine rack and then left to rot onto the floor of the store which we had both just been told we were banned from.

I turned my face away from him as I heard him yell something at the closing automatic doors.

“Dammit!” He hissed, and I turned to see him running his hands through his dark hair.

I felt my embarrassment flare tenfold when I realized the man whom I had crashed into was not some elderly, hearing-aid type man who would easily forgive an oh-so-innocent child like me. No, he was around my age, twenty three or twenty four, dark brown hair, glaring blue eyes, perfectly straight nose and square jaw. He looked down at me, shooting clear icy venom in my direction.

Honestly, I could not have picked a worse time to be a klutz. It was almost ten-o-clock at night, and here I was standing outside the blatantly shut automatic doors of the largest grocery store in our area with a glaring, handsome guy whose paid-for groceries I had just obliterated worse than my cart had with the 40 cans of tomato soup.

“Er … sorry?” I offered, pulling on the sleeve of my shirt.

He clenched his jaw firmly. “And you felt the need to jump onto my cart because …”

Ah. Fill in the blanks. I had never been very good at those.

I scratched the back of my neck nervously, “Well … er, there is a perfectly good explanation.” I said, biting my lip.

He raised his eyebrows.

I looked at him sheepishly, “I was ‘spill on Aisle 9’.”

He studied me for a moment, and I could have sworn the corners of his mouth twitched for a second. He was an expert at maintaining his glaring composure however. Much to my dismay, I groaned.

“What do you want me to do?” I asked, now annoyed, pulling out my wallet from my pocket. “I’ll pay for your groceries. Just stop glaring at me like that …” I looked up at him, giving him a small glare of my own, “it’s creeping me out.”

I pulled out a twenty from my wallet and was about to thrust it into his hand when I heard him snicker. I gave him a skeptic look and he exhaled.

“S’ fine.” He mumbled, stepping back from me.

“No it’s not. I crushed your groceries, and now I’m paying for them.”

“Seriously, keep your money. All I bought was some peanut butter, bananas and crackers. I hardly think it’ll make a difference whether I have them or not.”

His tone was so finalizing that even I subsided from argument.

“So what exactly was the ‘spill on aisle 9’?” he asked, after I tucked the wallet back into my pocket.

I gave him a withering look, “Tomato soup.” I muttered.

He looked back into the store, the light from the windows casting shadows across his face. He looked like he was smiling, and when he turned back to me I saw it was more of a full fledged grin.

“That huge-ass pyramid?” He asked, running his fingers through his hair.

I shrugged, resisting to smile as well. Now, looking back on it, the entire situation seemed too comical for me to have even been slightly worried about.

“It was wasn’t it?” he prompted, his eyes twinkling in the light of the street lamp.

I rolled my eyes, giving a small snort of a laugh. “Yeah, almost 40 cans.”

He looked at me, “You know they’ve been trying to get that thing up for almost a week now?”

“Seriously?”

There was a split second of silence before both of us erupted into laughter. My laughter dissolved, and I was left with a satisfied smile on my face, my previous worries disintegrating into nothing but the rubbish of childish worries.

“I’m Jasmine.” I introduced, feeling slightly uncomfortable with my own courage of giving my name to a complete stranger.

He held out his hand, and I wrinkled my nose looking at it, then up at him. He smirked, drawing it back and running it casually through his hair. “Derek.”

I stepped back, looking up at the sky hardly able to distinguish stars from the lights of the planes which flew overhead. We were in Toronto after all. Planes were a part of the scenery for all we were concerned.

“I should probably be going.” I cleared my throat turning in direction of where my car was parked.

He looked down at his silver watch and nodded.

I turned when I heard my name.

“Jasmine?”

I looked over my shoulder, and saw him smirking.

“You’ve got peanut butter all over the back of your pants.”

With horror my neck snapped down to see peanut butter smothered over the back of my pants, making it look like I had literally done it in my pants. I looked up at him fixing him with narrowed eyes as he grinned, chuckling.

I tried to wipe it, making it all that much worse.

“I blame you.” I muttered angrily.

He looked surprised.

“Who buys peanut butter this late at night anyways?” I yelled at him from across the parking lot when I reached my car.

I saw him give a small wave before disappearing around the side of the store.

The only thing running through my mind as I drove back to my dorm, other than I hoped Lily would be asleep so she could not blackmail me for life, was thankfulness at the fact that Toronto was such a large city. It would be like finding a needle in a haystack for me to ever run into the same person twice. With that reassuring thought in mind, I reassembled what was left of my pride and ego and walked up the stairs to my dorm, groaning when I had to spend the rest of my night trying to sleep as Lily (my roommate who collapsed in a fit of laughter at the sight of my peanut butter smothered pants) asked me whether I needed ‘Depends’ every hour on the hour until she too fell asleep.

'Shit' had quite literally become my word of the day.

So this is an idea I had for a short ficlet. If I get enough feedback I'll continue, or else I'm fine leaving it as a one-shot. Tell me what you think! -InkIllusionist