At a Supermarket in Japan

by Brooke Arnett

He holds up a packet of chocolate-flavored instant ramen; "We have to get this," he says. Aloe juice, mushroom cookies, sugary squid jerky: even if all you saw was our basket, you'd know we were foreigners, or children. We reach for the most ready-to-eat tidbits and the gaudiest packages. Meanwhile, old ladies, natives here, buy the big, plain bags of dried sardines. Do they use them for soup? I wish something stranger than us would happen here: a pterodactyl crashing through the front door, or a bear picking up bottles of shampoo between two of its claws.

6S

Brooke Arnett's flash fiction can be seen daily at Story a Day.