Shop of Horrors

There’s a bunch of heads on a shelf, waiting to be purchased by the first sick monster that feels like they want a head. Or if you look to the adjacent shelf you can just buy an ear. Or maybe a whole bunch of ears. Head deeper into the store for fingers, hearts, kidneys and – for the oddly inclined – elbows and navels.

It sounds like a shop of horrors, but it’s just an ordinary store at the end of the street. No one even bats an eyelid when they walk past the eyes or the hands.

I decide to be daring. I’m going to buy one of everything. I fill a shopping trolley with blood and hair, and everything else macabre that could be found. I reach the checkouts and the assistant can’t resist verbally identifying each item as she scans it through the register. I’m so ashamed.

“Could you keep it down?” I whisper. “Pardon me?” She responds. I’m too ashamed to repeat myself. She carries on reciting the names of each object as it passes her scanner.

“Head of cauliflower”
Beep!
“Ear of corn”
Beep!
“Lady finger banana, artichoke heart, can of kidney beans”
Beep, beep, beep!
“Elbow pasta, navel orange, potato, a hand of bananas”
Beepbeepbeepbeep!
“That potato has eyes” I had to interject. She looked at me blankly.
“Blood orange”
Beep!
“And angel hair pasta. That’s seventeen-twenty sir. Are you paying by card?”
“Cash please.”
“Sure.”

T.