The supermarket’s fruit fairy (“I haunt” Series)
I still wonder whether I imagined a fruit fairy for relief or met her for real, if she was not perchance etched from far stranger entities. Oh, fairies, they appear to us to distract, entertain, or appease and sometimes, our minds create them to ease answers to puzzling questions.
The fruit box
As I enter the supermarket, I pass by the fancy, but unpopular, sushi circle, drawn to the berry section, the first fruit stall on the left. I hunger for fruit, so why not start with the healthiest?
Three desolate transparent boxes lie under the label blueberries—understandable, that late in the evening. I approach the stall and touch one box, wavering, then look up at the price displayed: 6.99. Excellent, one of the shop’s late offers and discounts.
A little girl, blond tresses lucent in the neon light, sweeps delicate fingertips over the other two boxes, lingers, caresses them. She says, “Blueberries, lady,” as though I didn’t know. The infant capers away, but returns, as though she protected and marketed the expensive fruit section. “Blueberries,” she chants, staring down at the dark blue drops covered in plastic.
I take the box I touched earlier and place it in my cart, then progress toward mangoes, kiwi, passion, and other exotic fruit. The next thing I know, the blond infant supervises these, from so close to me, but muted, this time. I switch head and catch her eyes. A sweet, yet eerie, smile transpires secret alluring vibes. Supercilious contentment, too.
As I continue my perusal, my eyes keep searching for the fruit princess. She dances in rounds in the large space before the fruity queendom, ignoring me. Or anyone else. Where are the customers, though?
I leave the deserted area, biding the impromptu ballerina adieu.
A mix of curiosity and suspicion piques my insight, so I raise the tub to inspect the stuck label. Since the typed text is hardly visible, I put my eyeglasses on, but the mystery stands, since my hasty scanning finds no familiar language. Anyway, what mysterious content could delude me other than harmless blueberries?
I continue my tour, therefore, among veggies and legumes, pick some, welcoming a fresh company of interested buyers. The consumer’s excitement of choice and filling the shopping cart takes over and conquers any puzzling matters. Cleared of nonsense, I pursue my shopper’s intent.
When I come across a price-checking machine, though, I think of illumination. Scan the barcode: 150. Double, but still a convenient buy. Berries are pricy, no common fruit. So healthy.
Soon, I conclude my shopping session and leave the crowded mall.
The fruit fairy
Invigorated by the chill outside and loaded with goodies, I enter my home, warmer and cozier than upon the morning departure. A shopping pit stop does wonders on your way back from work.
I unload my bags—packets of dry meat, cute pots of yogurt, canned stuff, fresh vegetables, and fruit. Finally, the crown’s jewel, my berries. Leisurely, purposive inspection will unveil their origin’s mystery.
When I raise the box’s thin lid, surprise! No berries. Two plump bunches of grapes lie shy in the tub. Dark purple, almost black. What origin grapes, for God’s sake? Greek, Cypriot, ancient Egyptian? I fetch a magnifying glass to read the exotic provenience. The strange characters, though, do not satisfy my impatience. Cyrillic.
Never mind, I’ll taste one grape—although too saccharine, still healthy.
Once the flimsy pellicle snaps between teeth, an ambrosial flavor caresses my palate, invades my mouth. Incense vapors inundate my hindsight, foregrounding a foggy visual image. The ballerina girl twirls in its spotlight—the supermarket’s fruit princess.
I take grape upon grape into my mouth, indulging my recent memory and warmed spirits toward the lonely brat. Charmed, I scan my tongue buds for sensations, and my mind for revealing connections.
How come only me and the blond princess shared the blueberries episode? The girl had no parents? While stroking the fruit tubs, she endeared herself to me.
“Blueberries, lady.” Whether aware the containers held grapes, the fruit fairy guided me to take one. She sure guessed I was looking for blueberries and feared I would spurn lookalikes. Why?
The infant’s image won’t leave me, her chanted words and her frolicking. No matter how unaffected she sounded, she somehow cast a secret, persuasive net over me. Who was she?
With a handful of black grapes, I leave the kitchen and sit on the couch, munching and meditating. The child’s words turn aromatic, her stare solar, her blueberries paradisal.
“Lady.” Such tenderness, innocence, and simplicity conquer my senses, so I focus on deciphering the impromptu shopping sprite, my fruit fairy.
Her outfit stays immaterial, as though she was from a fairies’ realm. Only her fair locks, gaze, and voice etch and re-etch in my memory.
I start with guilt. What if the kid craved blueberries and her parents couldn’t afford them? But what if she had got lost? Or fled from a problematic household, or bullying peers, or austere neighbors? Poor thing, she yearned to make friends with a compassionate adult.
Oh baby, sweetie, forgive me! I should have bought you the damn blueberries, as black and grapes as they may be. Oh baby, you longed for my friendship, but I, cruel hag, never minded you. Well, I did, but in a self-centered way. I only cared for my shopping business and questioned your disrupting apparition.
At these ruminations, the wistful child takes shape in my vision, kneels before me, and her blond tresses wait. Dare I touch them?
Over my lap, the blond tresses wait, but I play forbidding again, dare not caress their sheen, silken, wavy. Remorse bites at my heart’s core, yet I stay still. And mute, murmuring in an audio vision, “Blueberries”.
As though hearing my deep voice, the kid raises her head. Large irises of an undefined color fix my stunned gaze. From a vaporous spiral, her irises stare, retreating in a twirling impassible haze, whose train diffuses a faint aroma of smoldering myrrh.
I awake from my dozing with the fragrant grape–berries still flavoring my palate. “Lady, let go of the mystery girl, fruit fairy, ha!” I mutter to myself. I need some distraction, so turn on the TV.
“Young Ukrainian girl and her parents badly injured on the zebra crossing, by a…”
Dear God, this afternoon in the capital city, but in what hectic spot? Ambulance sirens resound in my brain. Yes, I heard their wailing while heading for the mall, but such heart-rending sounds traverse any quarter in town every five minutes. Then, the injured family sure lay in a hospital when I encountered the fairy.
Yet, a shrilling fear creeps through my spine—what if? My focus moves on the Ukrainian child, so I search for fresh news on my phone. Nothing, not yet.
The next hour’s news tells the same story—injured. Till midnight, no development of the unfortunate incident transpires to dispel my disquietude. I go to bed tense.
In the morning news, no clue again. Recent stories fade away, leaving space for present mishaps. I walk out frustrated, yet determined to revisit the shop in the evening.
Berry, not fruit fairy
On my route back from work, crisscrossing wailings of sirens accompany my distress, magnify it to stark desperation. Homes ablaze in forlorn ends of town, reckless speed and car crashes, a city under daily assault and hapless citizens taken to hospitals. Among them, child victims of irresponsible adults.
With my mind disheveled by zappy assumptions, I reach the supermarket’s access gates. The wings flap open, inviting me in, but I stop at reception, sticking my chest to its tall parapet.
A young lady is reciting a marketing pitch in the microphone—the day’s exceptional offers and last-minute discounts. Another clerk is busy perusing a pile of documents.
When the former concludes her announcements, I intrude myself into her professional apathy.
“Evening,” I say. “I was here last night. Please, did any unfortunate incident occur in the area?”
“Sorry? Our firm policy prevents customers’ disappointment, misunderstandings, or reprobate conduct. If we failed and you have a complaint, go ahead, and we’ll help you with due reverence.”
“This matter is not about me or your company’s policy, but regards a terrible accident—if you heard anything.”
The hostess’s elegant fair locks stir. “Madam, I guarantee, no one suffered an injury—not on the premises, not in this mall.”
“I mean nearby, in this quarter in town—heard any sirens, the police, ambulances?”
She straightens her neck longer. “While on duty, I only mind whatever occurs in this bustling indoors. There was no uncommon commotion.”
I insist, with an invasive question. “Did you watch last night’s news?”
She throws a condescending smile at me and says, “I’m sorry, the only news I ever consider regards this operational hub and my sacrosanct household.”
I point my chin toward the other receptionist, less stylish in manner and looks, so better grounded in off-premises practicalities, I surmise. “Maybe your colleague heard something.”
“Did you?” the ruffled blonde asks her coworker.
Having listened in, the clerk shrugs her hunched shoulders, smiling.
“OK, but did you make any announcement last night about a little girl estranged from her parents—on the sacrosanct premises?”
“I’m afraid I can’t help you, since I did the morning shift yesterday.”
“I suppose you keep records of such incidents, so will you check, please?”
“Is it your daughter?”
“No, but—”
“We only offer such information to close relatives, so what’s your relationship with this presumed stranded urchin?”
Her curiosity piqued, the other clerk approaches the counter, her plain bob still unshaken, but pupils catching a bold vibe. “No such incident, I grant, as I was on vigilant duty last night.”
I point to the venue where I encountered the mystery girl. “Ladies, this child roamed the exotic fruit section, now ballet dancing, forlorn, next playing guardian of the stall. Look—right there! I swear, she interacted with me.”
“Why didn’t you refer the lost child to reception?” the plain clerk says.
Her dark hair’s stiffness disconcerts my explanatory volition, but I fight inhibition. “I only minded her loneliness later, had no clue, and still have, why she lingered among fruits. I reckon she craved companionship and regret not talking to her.”
The stylish receptionist puts on a serious mien. “How did you interact, then?”
Nonplussed, I strive to translate my encounter with the fruit fairy into solid, believable words. “She acted as a fair, yet compelling, assistant, as though in a promotional trance, so enticed me to pick a lonely box of expensive fruit in the exotic department.”
“Exotic comes at a price, dear lady, and you chose in full consciousness, don’t invent misleading, culpable shop fairies.” The blonde’s blue irises catch fire, foregrounding pinpoint pupils. In a lower, definitive tone, she says, “So you have no grounds to complain.”
Meanwhile, a stern guard has joined the investigative party. “Any problem?” he addresses the receptionists.
I say, “No, we discuss a lonely girl’s apparition in the fruit department. A fruit fairy,” I say and smile at him.
“It must be the daughter of the young fellow who runs the sushi business. She often comes here after school and loiters about, unsupervised. Loves fruit.”
My peepers search the sushi circular counter for the man. The guy last night, rolling and cutting sushi packets, in absolute muteness, and arranging them on gaudy plates behind glass partitions. No buyers, though, only passers-by, as habitual.
“I’m most grateful, sir. What’s the girl’s name?”
“Anne, I guess, but her father calls her Berry–Anne,” the guard says, departing for his routine rounds.
Starting with recognition, I address to the reception desk hostesses. “Thank you, ladies, excuse me.”
They shrug and resume their business while my physique’s halo opens the entrance flaps wide. Lucky to grab a genuine blueberry tub on my route, I rush to a cash desk, pay, re-enter the store, twist left, and stop still, to face the sedulous sushi entrepreneur.
I place the plump box of blueberries on the plexiglass counter. “Evening, sir.”
Startled, the sushi man straightens his spine and shows me pupils that shine.
“Welcome, madam, to our Japan-style boutique. What special filling and marine flavor your gourmet palate would like to savor?”
“I admired your delicatessen many times, but never stopped to buy some.”
“Thank you, appreciate, and you’re welcome. I give you right, the choice is so rich it confounds passing visitors, so they dare not trespass, ha ha. Shall I narrow down the pick for you?”
“No, thank you, though confound, I am, but my visit regards your young daughter.”
“You know Berry–Anne?”
“Not quite, but I understand she adores blueberries. These are for her, a late gift, a token.”
“Oh, unbelievable, how come? I can’t accept, no.”
“Please, I insist, bought them minutes ago, one of the last boxes. Is the puckish princess here?”
The man’s pupils dull. “Did she do something wrong? She capers about but never interferes with the store’s customers lest she’ll jeopardize our lease contract. We struggled a lot for this selling spot.”
“Such a sweet child’s capers can’t pester the management or disturb any shopper. I admired your daughter’s waltzing among fruits last night and praised her discreet bearing. So gracious and gentle, protective with the tender merchandise displayed, as though a fruit fairy.”
“My Berry?” The man’s eyes grow bulgy in his scraggy face and fix me. “Last night? What hour last night?”
“What happened to Berry? Dear God, you scare me, sir.”
“Her mom dropped by and took her home by six.”
“So early? Is she OK?”
“Dear lady, what is your precise business in front of my counter? I appreciate your gift, but don’t see your drift.”
“Daddy, Daddy, look what I found in Dairy!”
Behind the glass counter, the sushi-monger leans forward to embrace a little girl and inspect her jocular findings. But what? No fair tresses sparkle under the neon shine. Instead, glossy chestnut strands glow, to dismay my mind’s flow.
So the sushi chef’s daughter is not my princess, but an endearing brat playing marketing gambits on site. The supermarket’s adopted live mascot—Berry–Anne. Thank God she adores berries too and will enjoy my stray token.
A fairy phantom
Perplexed, I depart through the central aisle, repeat the earlier tour, and exit the prosperous shopping venue. I carry within the elfin child’s mystery, undeciphered.
Outdoors, urban droning, interspersed with deafening horning and ambulance wailings echoing shrills of pain. My nostrils draw in frigid November drafts, struggling to detect berry fragrance. Or the ambrosial incense of black grapes ripen under an elusive Ukrainian sun.
As I cross the boulevard, I envision my fruit fairy lying across the wide milky stripes on the asphalt, her fair tresses haloing an anguished stare. “Sweetie, I relished your Ukrainian grapes,” I murmur. In my mind’s vision, her sweet, rosy lips etch a smile, and my tenderness runs the ether between us to wherever in town she is.
“Where are you, princess?” I whisper, pacing the pedestrian crossing back. But God, this city’s bounty of crosswalks baffles me.
Shall I play detective tomorrow and phone hospitals and police stations? To make a lunatic of myself in this community of robotic citizens? No. Receptionists there will sieve my sanity through interrogations far more cynical than the supermarket’s.
A thorough search on the Internet, therefore, stays my last resort since TV stations never re-cover yesterday’s news. I reach the parking lot and get in my car. What the heck? The air freshener diffuses a scent unfamiliar inside that cubicle.
Blood coagulates in my veins, and I picture myself in a horror movie—worse than my preferred genre, psychological thriller. My fright-stricken imagination concocts a shadow behind, stalking my senses. A pallid shadow in the worst range of horror, the movies I ridicule. “Please, girl, I no longer wish to connect with you!” I don’t even know whether I say so, or it’s my guardian angels’ voices praying for me.
I learned something from those ridiculous films, though—I won’t play the stupid role of swiveling my stiff neck. Despite awareness of future remorse, I choose to fail the Ukrainian girl again so that the phantom, ignored, will fade away, off my back.
I dump the girl’s specter and the gas pedal and drive off.
Throughout my race home, the spectral burden co-pilots me from the rear seat. My neck hurts, hand bones grip the wheel, my eyes sting with concentration and care for random pedestrians. I’d rather pull at any wrong curb and risk a fat fine and then call a cab than run living flesh down.
Chilly sweat droplets clump on my forehead. Once I park the car, I’m free to wipe them off, and wipe, and wipe, with my hand’s back, but chilliness proves to pool in my head. Shall I apply a low-rated horror recipe and face my stalker? Dear God, the unknown beats the most terrible fantasy.
I realize I’ll never get out of that dusky cubicle unless I check my posterior whereabouts. Freeze in the car with my visions and fears, in the happiest probability, besides reality? No, so I switch my torso. An empty dark space meets my glance, still effusing smoldering myrrh, but I snap the doorhandle hither and flip out of my trance.
A miscellaneous fruit fairy
My home’s warmth feels the utmost shelter, melts joint and psychological stiffness, welcomes me with sacrosanct mirth. But of course, first move—switch on the TV. I hunger for fresh news on stale events. And the miracle happens since the channel of my remote’s choice shows a news title reading Ukrainian something. Wow, it’s my girl.
They reveal the incident’s setting—a junction near Mammoth Mall, in the farthest northern district in town. Deluded by recent visions and misbeliefs, I almost think I live there, but no, I’m a southerner, who shops in nearby southern malls.
This misplacing of the event deflates my mystical side, but quick, paranormal readings rekindle it. The spirit traversed the entire city to reach me!
“Still hospitalized, the injured family’s condition is beyond fatal,” the news story ends. Hallelujah! No spook has been stalking me. But with my appetite for fantasy whetted, I go find my grapes and roller coast anew.
With each black grape I eat, I slide deep into the fairy thread. Frail, I lie between silken bedsheets, weakened, but somehow indulging in my imponderable condition. Sheets wave, wing me, offer me to an impalpable kingdom of light—oh, what delight!
Impish whispers stroke my eardrums. Misty whiffs titillate my nostrils with perfumes blown from blossoming vineyards. I am petals of white roses and soar, diffusing fragrances. Was berries in dusky woods, but I vaporized in essences.
The floating sensation shuts my physical sensors, so I inspire breaths of hallucinations and soar. When a vaporous window opens—I see.
A child princess dances along fruit stalls at a remote outdoor marketplace. She stops before one, mesmerized. “Are you alone, sweetie?” the greengrocer asks. “I sell forest fruit, dear one: blackberries, raspberries, blueberries.” The child keeps mum, so the woman says, “I’ll gift you some. Which do you choose?”
“Blueberries, lady.”
I awake with these words’ sound in my head and strive to understand. The fruit fairy is me, in this thread.
As a child, my mum’s story goes, I once quitted home and wandered the streets to reach the marketplace alone. Frantic, family and friends searched for the disappeared child throughout town. At dusk, a neighbor found me among market stalls and brought me home.
A conglomerate of threads braided, at an ethereal level, into an illusory fruit fairy. Early, hidden remembrances, extra-corporeal wandering, and a paranormal princess. Or an actual girl introduced in the picture by providence.
. . .
Featured image by Márta Valentínyi from Pixabay
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