Peripheral Visions: Aisle 7

Peripheral Visions: They coalesce in the soft blur of darkest shadows and take shape in the corner of your eye. But you won't see them coming... until it's too late.

Aisle Seven

"Cleanup on Aisle Seven!"

Zachariah barely heard the words. He was focused on the seventeen different brands of canned pears on the shelves. He looked back at the list in his hand, trying to be sure he'd read Marc's handwriting correctly.

"Pears," he muttered to himself. "Or... peas?" He turned the scrap of paper this way and that. "Pears," he decided, and reached for a jar with an attractive label.

"Shit," Zachariah moaned when the jar slipped through his fingers and crashed to the floor, shattering, sending juice and wet slices of fruit across his shoes. He looked at the mess in dismay.

"Oh – don't worry about that, sir," he heard a friendly voice say. Looking to his left he saw a young woman with a bright smile and a ponytail. "We'll get that cleaned up."

"I don't suppose you sell shoeshine here?" Zachariah asked. His shoes were brand new, expensive... and now sticky with pear juice.

The young woman chuckled. "We do, actually... Aisle Nine." She gestured in the direction in which Zachariah thought Aisle Nine must lie.

"Thanks," he said glumly. Then, remembering the list in his hand, he asked, "Hey, can you read this? I can never make out my husband's handwriting." He showed her the list. "See right here? Is he asking for pears, or...?"

"Peas," the young woman said. "That says peas." She squinted at the list. "I think." Throwing him a last smile, she headed off – to get a mop, Zachariah supposed.

Worried that he might make another mess, Zachariah selected a can of pears, avoiding the jars this time. Pushing his cart a little further, he hedged his bets by picking out a can of peas as well. Then he headed for the end of the aisle, planning to turn his cart to the right and skip Aisle Eight for Aisle Nine and some shoeshine.

A voice came over the loudspeaker: "Cleanup on Aisle Seven."

"That's funny," Zachariah said to himself, remembering he'd heard the same thing just before he dropped the pears. Then he stopped, puzzled, and glanced back the way he'd come. The sign hanging overhead identified it as Aisle Seven.

Zachariah turned that over in his mind. It was the same announcement over again, but the first time it had come over the PA was before he'd dropped the jar of pears. There hadn't been two broken jars in the same aisle over the course of just a few minutes, had there?

Zachariah looked back at the aisle carefully. The broken jar and scattered pears slices glittered in a puddle – the only such mess in sight. "Aisle Seven," he murmured to himself. "Weird."

***

"What's with the pears?" Marc asked, helping Zachariah unload the cloth tote bags.

Zachariah sighed, then laughed. "Just an impulse," he said.

"And your shoes?" Marc asked, frowning, looking at his husband's feet. "What happened?"

Zachariah gave him a wry look. "Just an impulse," he repeated. Then, reminded of the odd event at the store, he said, "You know, it was weird. Just before I dropped that jar of pears – "

"That's pear juice on your shoes?"

"Why? Is pear juice especially bad?"

"No, it's just... I don't know why you were getting pears in the first place."

"Because..." Zachariah drew the word out teasingly. He drew the crumpled list out of his pocket and offered it to his husband.

"Oh, you couldn't read my writing," Marc said.

"Could you maybe write the list in block print next time?" Zachariah asked.

They both laughed, and then neither of them could remember what they had been talking about. The subject turned to what ingredients Marc would need for the coconut cake he was planning to bake for the Inauguration Day party they were hosting in a few weeks' time.

"Thank God Mattson won," Marc said.

"She says you're welcome," Zachariah replied jovially.

Marc gave him a sideways look. Grinning, he asked, "Which? Mattson? Or God?"

"Both," Zachariah laughed.

***

The following Sunday, as was his weekly ritual, Zachariah was back at Sno's Market. "Cake flour," he muttered, peering at Marc's handwritten list. It was as illegible as ever. "Coffee. Coral. Coral?" Zachariah turned the piece of paper this way and that, trying to see if the word would make sense from some other angle. Suddenly he understood what it must be: "Cocoa. Right..."

Zachariah was in the baking aisle. He looked up to survey the kinds of flour and sugar on the shelves, and to look for baking cocoa. His eye fell on a bag of shredded coconut. "Wait..." He looked at the list again. "He must mean..." Zachariah shrugged, smiling to himself, and then decided coconut made more sense that cocoa. "He alphabetizes his grocery list, and yet he can't make it so that a guy can read the damn thing," he sighed.

Threading up one aisle and down another, Zachariah made his way through the supermarket, picking items off the shelf as he found them and trying not to have to double back. "I could go for some of those," he said, catching sight of his favorite brand of baked beans. They weren't on the list, but...

Zachariah tossed two cans of baked beans into his cart and then glanced at the list again. He noticed words written out in neat block letters – large letters.

WATCH OUT

"What the...?"

Those words hadn't been there before.

Zachariah tuned the scrap of paper this way and that, frowning.

"Watch out," he muttered. "Well, okay, then..." He laughed to himself at Marc's off-the-wall sense of humor and did a waltzing dance step that carried him toward the opposite side of the aisle.

His movement took him out of the way of a sudden rain of heavy cans that clattered to the floor.

"Holy fuck," Zachariah exclaimed, startled.

The cans were large and contained cooked pumpkin. Looking up, Zachariah saw that the very top of the shelving was lined with similar cans, double-stacked.

"You okay over there?" a nervous voice called.

"What the hell, man?"

A moment later a teenager in a blue Sno's uniform shirt rounded the corner and came up the aisle. Looking from the scattered, dented tins to Zachariah, the kid went pale. "I'm so sorry! Are you okay? You didn't get hit by anything?"

"No, I'm fine. What were you doing?"

"Restocking," the kids said. "I was trying to make some room up on top... I guess I pushed a little too hard."

"There shouldn't be so much stuff up there," Zacharia scolded.

"I... yeah," the kid stammered. "Yeah, you're right. I didn't realize... I apologize, I really do..."

Seeing how freaked out – and how young – the kid was, Zachariah gave him a smile. "It's okay," he said. "I'm okay, No harm, no foul. Not like last time I was..." He glanced up at the aisle sign while he was talking, and words suddenly abandoned him.

He was standing in Aisle Seven... again.

"You sure you're okay?" the kid asked, as Zachariah checked the list in his hand, looking for the neat block letters that were no longer there.

"I..." Zachariah looked at the kid and then back at the list. "Yeah," he said. "All good."

***

"No pear disasters this week?" Marc asked, smiling, as they unloaded the groceries.

"No, but... did you write a warning on the list?"

"A what?"

"Like, a joke."

"A joke?"

"A joke message."

"Like, what? 'Flour, sugar, Crisco... harness?' Something like that?"

"No, I mean..." Zachariah shook his head. "Never mind. I must have seen wrong. Or made it up afterwards."

"After what?"

"Oh – some kid who was restocking knocked a bunch of cans off the shelf and they almost hit me. Not quite, though. I thought I saw a warning on the list, and I was so amused I..." Zachariah trailed off; Marc was looking at him like he'd grown a second head, and he wasn't sure how to explain it, anyway. "Anyway, nothing bad happened. But you know how they say you actually dream you're tripping after you have a spasm that wakes you up, even if you remember it the other way around? I must have made up the warning after the cans fell. They gave me fright."

"I'll bet they did." Marc leaned toward him, looking him over with pale, concerned eyes. "You're okay, though?"

"Yes, clean misses all around. No concussion. No bruises. No broken arm."

"And no pear juice on your shoes," Marc smiled, reaching into the bag to get out a carton of milk.

***

The midterms hadn't been great, Zachariah thought glumly, looking at the newspapers and magazines on display near the store's entrance. He hoisted a carrier, then deliberated about whether to buy a paper edition of the Los Angeles Herald. There was enough bad news online to read for free.

Then again, how much "news" online for free was reliable? The Herald, at least, had held onto its journalistic credibility. I should just subscribe, Zachariah thought to himself. But that was for later; right now, he couldn't resist: He reached over and took a copy.

He was depressed. Everyone was. That was why he'd left work early; that was why he was doing the shopping on Wednesday, rather than waiting to get everything in one go on Sunday.

Holding the paper half-folded over in one hand while pushing the cart, he headed to the far end of the market – bread, baked goods, meat counter – and then made his way methodically, aisle by aisle, across the store's sprawling interior.

We have so much of everything, he thought, looking at the plastic toys that sat in a far corner, just before turning into the aisle with the cookies and crackers – long shelves on either side loaded with hundreds of different brands and varieties. We have so much, and yet everyone's so pissed off and resentful all the time, always talking about what's being denied them...

He sighed, thinking about the renewed push to roll back marriage rights for couples like himself and Marc: A right that had been recognized as Constitutional and fundamental for almost a quarter of a century. But that right was in danger, with two sitting Supreme Court justices openly saying marriage equality wasn't a "substantial American tradition" that the Founding Fathers had intended for citizens to enjoy.

With at least one justice planning to retire in the next year, a guaranteed battle over her replacement, and another presidential election in only two years, everything felt far too unsettled.

We have so much of everything, Zachariah thought, pushing his cart past endless plastic packages decorated with smiling cartoon characters, except principles.

Well, that wasn't fair, he thought. It was only forty percent of the country that seemed to be lacking any sense of justice, communal responsibility, or compassion. Much of the nation still seemed to be holding onto some sense of decency.

But there was another twelve percent that could swing either way – and they bothered him most of all. Mattson had squeaked into office, displacing Kirsch and his monstrous cadre of cronies by barely more than one percent of the vote. And now she'd lost the House and had a bare majority in the Senate. Theopublicans were crowing over their "landslides" victories, which nonpartisan news sources noted was – again – a matter of a one-percent margin at best.

"Our mandate is clear," the representative viewed as the most likely next Speaker of the House had declared the night before. "Stop Mattson's socialist agenda in its tracks!"

Socialist agenda. There had been a time... when he was young, not so long ago... that wanting to bolster the Department of Education and fix Social Security would have been hailed as good governance, not dismissed as a "socialist war on wealth," which was how the Theopublicans framed anything that wasn't a tax cut or a rollback of someone's rights.

The most depressing thing was that the representative in question was from California, which had once been a blue state bastion. When Zachariah and Marc had moved to California from Arkansas, they had thought they were heading to a promised land where, whatever craziness went on in the rest of the country, they would be safe.

Maybe not so much any longer.

What is wrong with people? Zachariah thought as he pushed the cart.

One of the front wheels stuck and the cart jolted to the side; the newspaper slipped through his fingers.

Zachariah bent to retrieve the paper and it splayed open across his hands. He blinked at the photo and the headline:

Apartment Houses Destroyed, Few Survivors in San Gabriel Plane Crash

"What the hell?" Zachariah said to himself. Scanning the paper, he took in the article's opening words: "The scream of the jet's powerful engines alarmed residents of sleepy San Gabriel on Wednesday afternoon. Moments later that alarm turned to horror as a passenger jet carrying 284 passengers went down in a densely populated residential neighborhood, killing everyone on board and leaving a swath of death and destruction across the city. An 'avenue of fire' burned brightly for hours before darkening to a smoking scar..."

"What the actual fuck," Zachariah breathed. He glanced at the top of the paper to see the masthead; surely he'd pulled the wrong paper by mistake?

But no: Los Angeles Herald the masthead read. In smaller type: Thursday, November 4, 2038

"Uh... no," Zachariah muttered. "No way."

It was Wednesday. November 3. The day after the election.

Zachariah stared at the paper hard, trying to assure himself he wasn't imaging it.

Then he heard a sound: A deep, rushing sound, a sound almost like thunder. The floor vibrated under his feet as though an earthquake was happening.

Looking up instinctively, Zachariah thought: Jesus, this is it. This is the crash... His eyes raked the ceiling: Fluorescent lights, circular vents, sound-absorbing panels...

Then he noticed the aisle sign.

"Aisle Seven," he muttered, remembering the strange incidents from almost two years before.

The roaring sound grew louder. Zachariah glanced back at the paper... and saw the same headline that had originally been there:

Dems Shellacked in Rebuke to Mattson's Presidency

Hands trembling, Zachariah clutched the paper hard and looked at the date: Wednesday, November 3, 2038

The roaring ruble was now accompanied by a deafening whoosh and then a massive explosion from somewhere nearby shook the ground. Dropping the paper, Zachariah ran for the exit. He wasn't alone; other shoppers were pressing toward the door in a panic, creating a blockade. Caught up in the push, and then pushing himself, Zachariah burst out of the store and into the parking lot. Fireballs were rising over the tops of nearby buildings; then there was another explosion, and one of the buildings seemed to collapse in a tumble of flames and debris.

There were screams all around him, and then an invisible fish swatted Zachariah to the ground as a massive shockwave hit. He lay stunned, staring at the sky overhead. Shouts and screams came to his ears, and then there was a sound of sirens –

"You all right?" An older man was staring down at him, his face creased with fear. "You better get up if you can. Those buildings over there... they're on fire. The blaze might spread."

"Yeah," Zachariah said, accepting the man's hand and getting to his feet. "Yeah. Thank you."

The man nodded, then walked away briskly. Zachariah watched him climb into a large SUV, then start the vehicle and drive away.

Guess I better do the same, he thought. Then: Marc. I hope he's nowhere nearby... Walking to the car, pulling his phone from his pocket, he tried to call his husband. The lines were already jammed.

Zachariah got home first. The crash had taken place a good distance away, but he remained on guard in case of fire. The image of the newspaper flashed through his mind again and again.

Had he actually seen that? Or had he imagined a memory of seeing it after the shock of the crash and the jolt of being smashed to the ground?

Twenty anxious minutes later, Marc arrived. "You're safe," he said. "Thank fucking Christ."

"Thank God," Zachariah agreed, as he held his husband tightly.

***

It took half a year for Sno's to reopen; the market had suffered some damage from the crash and the subsequent fire. It took Zachariah almost that long again to summon his courage and return to the store.

Once he did, he was surprised at how familiar and ordinary it felt to be there – as if nothing had happened. He'd seen photos of the place after the plane crash: Shattered plate glass windows, shelves in disarray, a blackened stretch of wall. Now everything was neat and orderly, and there wasn't even a smell of fresh paint to suggest any damage had been done or repairs needed.

"Gotta press on," Zachariah muttered to himself.

Still, being in the store provoked anxiety in him, especially when he found himself in Aisle Seven. Slowly, as weeks passed and Zachariah fell into his old routine of Sunday shopping, that sense began to fade.

Until one Sunday in September of 2040.

He was in Aisle Seven. He'd almost forgotten his apprehension around that aisle... almost. But a sudden sensation of dread overcame him like a presentiment. At the same moment, his cell phone chirped.

Zachariah pulled his phone from his pocket. The screen advised him of an incoming call. Marc? No: With a shock, Zachariah realized the number was his own. Zachariah frowned at his phone; he turned it this way and that. The number didn't change: It was his.

Suddenly feeling fearful that he would miss the call, Zachariah answered. "Hell... hello?"

"Listen to me," the voice on the other end said – a whispered voice, an urgent voice, but still instantly recognizable as Zachariah's own. "You have to stop him. He's – "

The voice was interrupted by a loud, sharp noise. There were shouts, screams on the other end of the phone. Was he hearing the day of the jet crash all over again? But no; Zachariah realized this had to be a call from the future...

"He's got a gun," the voice said, still hushed and strained, but now hurried. "My god, I hope you understand, I hope you can do something before... before it's too – "

There was more screaming, then another loud, percussive sound... two, three more loud, percussive sounds... gunshots. Then a burst of what sounded like machine gun fire. More screams.

"Jesus," the voice said. "Sweet Jesus Christ. Can you hear it?"

"I..." Zachariah's voice failed; his throat felt choked.

"You're in Aisle Seven, right? I ran back here when the shooting started. It makes sense, right? Aisle seven is some kind of zone, or... or fissure... it's like a nexus, where warnings can find us... warnings of things to come..."

There was more shouting – a man's voice; a loud, angry voice.

Then Zachariah heard his own voice, shouting – no, screaming –

Then a burst of machine gun fire, and then...

Silence. Zachariah took the phone from his ear and looked at the screen. It lit up with the movement of his hand, displaying Marc's smiling face and, above it, the day and date.

Sunday, September 14 10:14

"It's going to happen," Zachariah whispered to himself. "It's a warning... they've all been warnings... about things that would happen, each one worse than the last... until now..." Zachariah shook his head. It was time to move, to look, to act, not to stand there in shocked disbelief.

Denial will get you killed, he thought. They were words he had exchanged with his sister on Facepalm the night before. She was a Kirsch supporter, excited at polling that predicted the one-term president would reclaim the White House thanks to a combination of a third-party candidate splitting the vote, apathy among marginalized communities, and young progressives boycotting the election out of "principle."

"Denial will get you killed," Zachariah repeated, this time aloud. "Come on, move!" he told himself. Abandoning the cart, he walked to the end of the aisle and looked over at the three staffed registers and self-service checkout area. He didn't see anything amiss...

Then he did. The man with the long gun slung over his shoulder and the hunter's jacket. The man arguing with a staff member. Zachariah couldn't hear what they were saying, but as he walked toward them with quick, anxious steps, the staff member's voice abruptly grew loud. "Sir, I'm sorry, but you cannot carry that in here! It's store policy."

"I have a goddamn Constitutional right," the man in the hunter's jacket shouted back.

More people were taking notice now.

"You can carry your gun around outside the store, sure," the staffer said. "But not on company property."

"Open carry is allowed under the law!" the man protested angrily.

"Not in the state of California," someone shouted.

"Not yet anyway," someone else said in a dry tone of voice. "Give it a minute."

"Hey," said an older man – tall, with a large belly; he looked powerful. The older man began moving toward the man in the hunter's jacket. "If he told you it's store policy, maybe you should respect that. Private property rights, yeah?"

"Fuck that – don't come any closer!" the man in the hunter's jacket shouted back, his voice rising in pitch. He scuttled backwards, away from the tall man, and began to shrug the strap of the assault rifle off his shoulder.

"He's arming up!" someone cried.

"He's gonna open fire!" someone else screamed.

"Shut up! Shup up, you goddamn commies! Just shut your woke fucking holes!" the man with the assault rifle shrieked, still fumbling the rifle off his shoulder.

The tall man was moving more quickly now. The man in the hunter's jacket was fully focused on him. Zachariah had moved close the gun-wielding man without being noticed. He was close enough – just maybe – to reach the gunman before he could get the assault rifle in position, before he could pull the trigger –

The world seemed to become a blur of adrenalized terror. Zachariah was moving, but he felt numb – like he was standing still, but also like he was moving faster than he'd ever moved in his life.

The man with the assault rifle started turning toward him, his face drawn into a mask of homicidal rage –

Then Zachariah was on top of him, all over him, grabbing the gun and trying to yank it away. The strap was still around the man's shoulder, but somehow Zachariah got enough of a grip on the rifle that he was able to pull and twist it almost out of the man's grip, then drive the butt of the gun back into the man's face.

The man went down. Zachariah went down on top of him. Others were suddenly there, reaching down to grab the rifle, kneeling on top of the man to pin him to the floor.

The gunman scrabbled to regain a grip on the assault rifle. The tall older man aimed a punch at the gunman's face and let fly, then followed up with two more hard, methodical punches. The man's head hit the floor; blood poured from his broken nose and split lip.

The older man shooed everyone back, then finessed the strap off the gunman's shoulder and slipped the assault rifle over his own shoulder. "Everyone, calm down," the older man said in a powerful voice. He wasn't shouting, but his words drowned out everything else. "The threat has been neutralized."

"Yeah?" someone called.

"Yeah. I'm a cop. I have it under control." The tall man looked at the gunman, lying bloody and still on the floor. "He's not going anywhere. Not for a while." The cop pulled out a phone, tapped it, and then told someone – a 911 dispatcher? Friends on the force? – where he was, what had happened, and to send both backup and an ambulance.

Feeling that his part in the drama was done, Zachariah walked out of the store, crossed the parking lot to his car, climbed in, and drove home.

"What's going on?" Marc asked, alarmed at his husband's pallor and the tremors that ran through him.

Zachariah grabbed Marc and held him tight.

***

Jenny paused in front of the magazines. Brad Sterling was on the cover of Fluff. Tia Wilson was on the cover of Glitter. Ricardo Rey was on the cover of Slugger. Excitedly, she grabbed up copies of all three issues and dropped them into the lap of her toddler, who sat in the cart. "Ryan! Shane!" she scolded the older children, who buzzed around her, chasing each other and laughing.

Sighing, Jenny pushed the cart into the cereal aisle. "Looks like Honeybuzz is on sale," she said to the toddler. "Ryan's gonna cuss me out for buying it instead of his favorite, but it cost twelve bucks last time for a box of Sugaroolahs," she complained to the toddler, who smiled and giggled in reply. How was she supposed to buy food with prices this high? It was impossible to get by on what Alex made – though she couldn't say that unless she wanted another black eye.

It would help if they didn't have three kids and another on the way, she thought. If she could still work, that would help even more – but Alex was a man of faith. He insisted Jenny's place was home, cooking and cleaning and teaching the kids how to read and write, even though Jenny didn't know how to read, herself.

Pushing the cart to the end of the aisle, Jenny surveyed the milk options in the cooler along the wall to see which brand was cheaper. Tugging a plastic gallon jug from the cooler, she set it into the cart and then turned up the next aisle. "Peas, carrots... peas and carrots... corn." She selected one can after the next, wrinkling her nose at the sight of the canned spinach.

"Mom, can we get this?" Shane had brought a box of WiffleWaffles from the cereal aisle.

"Put that back," Jenny told her.

"But Mom!"

"Put it back before I smack your ass!" Jenny warned.

Shane put the box on the floor, crossed his arms, and stood there sulking.

"Can we go to the park? Or do have to go back home and do school?" Ryan asked plaintively.

"Yeah, right," Jenny snorted. As if the kids would ever sit still for the home schooling she was, in theory, providing them. "We're going home, young man."

"You're gonna watch your show," Ryan said, as if accusing her.

"If you're good, you can color," Jenny promised him.

A noise drew Jenny's attention: The toddler had thrown two of the magazines out of the cart and onto the floor. "Good grief," Jenny sighed.

"Looks like they're a handful," a middle-aged woman said, pausing next to her. She was slim and looked like some kind professional, wearing a brown turtleneck under a tan blazer, with matching tan slacks to match. She was either a feminist or a lesbian, Jenny thought. She hoped the kids didn't take notice, or they'd be sure to blab about her to Alex, who would beat her again for talking to someone so clearly anti-scripture.

The situation got worse. "Here, let me get that for you..." The woman picked up the magazines. Jenny started to reach for them, hoping to make the encounter quick as possible, but the woman was looking at the magazines, frozen in place. "What's this?" she asked, frowning.

Jenny couldn't see the magazines in the woman's hands very clearly, but she could tell that the covers were different than they had been. They both had pictures of Winfield Kirsch, the guy who had been president and lost to Lisa Mattson. Now he was running again. That reminded her: The election was tomorrow. Her sister had been nagging her to vote this time. Mattson's people had stolen the election from Kirsch, she had told Jenny, and the rightful president needed the help of every patriot to take the country back. "You're a true patriot, aren't you, Jenny?" her sister had asked her.

"Sure," Jenny had yawned in reply. In truth, she wasn't sure she was still registered.

"What are these, joke magazines?" the middle-aged woman asked.

"What do you mean?" Jenny asked, impatient to retrieve her magazines and get away.

"They're dated next year. One is January 2041 and the other... what? July 2042?"

"Don't magazines always have a date that says a month from now?"

"Well, yes, but it's only November. But what I mean is... both these magazines say Kirsch won. I mean, they say he will win. And the headlines!" The woman looked back at the magazine. " 'Revenge! Kirsch vows liberals will cry again.' And this one, supposedly from July of '42... 'New prison camps in Duluth and Pensacola. Real Americans celebrate as mass arrests continue.' " The woman gave Jenny a look she'd seen before from fancy people like her, with her short-cropped hair and her little diamond earrings and her turtleneck.

Jenny snatched the magazines out of the woman's hands. "Don't go looking down your nose at me," she snarled. "Kids! Come on!" Ryan and Shane fell in line, and Jenny pushed her cart forward, glaring at the woman as she continued up the aisle.

"Who the hell does she think she is?" Jenny muttered to herself. She paused to put the magazines back in the cart and gave them each a once-over as she did. The covers were just as they had been before: Smiling movie stars. Jenny wasn't sure what the headlines said, but she was sure that fancy woman had been making fun of her, spouting fake news and laughing to herself.

Jenny pushed her cart. Her children got into a slap fight, then, giggling, started running. Above her a large sign declared:

Aisle 7

Next week we wrap up the season with a visit to a tiny community where fear and superstition hold sway – and the center of so much terror happens to be "The Old Lady on the Edge of Town."