Harriot West

Ill-fated

There’s always a crisis in the produce department—honeydews waiting to be shipped back molder outside the cooler—someone forgets to put red stickers on the organic garlic—overhead sprayers clog and butter lettuce wilts—so I pity the manager.

I know he knows

Mark has a hacking cough (which makes me leery of buying any of the apples he is stacking into pyramids)—Dean is devastated the Ducks lost by one point in the Final Four—Charlie is pissed he forgot to plug the meter and got a $50 parking ticket—and then there is Michael.

I’ve seen him

He’s lost a lot of weight and almost all his hair so somehow hi how are you feels like prying and besides here I am rushing to buy groceries for supper and I don’t want to hear his answer because the notion of confronting mortality in front of overripe bananas is simply too awful to contemplate.

the hollowness of silence