She walked into the store. She kept the purse gripped close and let her eyes scan across the aisles. She decided on aisle four, since it was as good as any, and headed towards it. On an impulse, she turned down aisle three instead. She stuck out her hand to deftly grab a snickers bar and dragged a finger across the box holding them. It cut in deep. A paper cut, just what I needed, she thought, then wondered if it ought to be called a cardboard cut instead. It didn’t matter though, she was at the end of the aisle and had to turn left. Any other day that snickers bar would have been hers.
She walked past the coolers with bottles of pop until they faded away into small gadgets; scissors and such. To the left the aisles were running now lengthwise along with her course. They were running towards the pharmacy and it sure would be nice to have some of those pills. But that would have to wait. It was time to turn right, to go through the double doors that were usually locked but now were open. It was the storage room she was in now. It was dark like he had said, little cracks of light sneaking in through the sides and bottom of the loading bay garage door. He was in the back right corner, also like he had said.
“You got it?” he asked.
“Yah, It’s here,” she said, and began digging through her purse. She pushed past the tubes of red lipstick and mascara and put her fingers around the cold butt of it. She pulled the gun out and extended it towards him, tried to look into his eyes, but found them fixed on the gun in her hands.
My fingerprints are probably still gonna be on it, she thought. Even if they aren’t, they’ll trace it to the guy that sold it to the pawn shop and then to the sixteen year old boy that bought it from the pawn shop that gave it to me.
The first two will be easy, they’ve got nothing to loose. The only hope will be with the boy. But the boy will talk, people always talk. We know you bought this gun with a fake ID, they’ll tell him. Do you know how long we can put you away just for that? Not to mention it somehow killed someone and you’re the last person we know that had it. Now all you gotta do is tell us who you gave it too. And then he’ll tell them, it’s really that easy. That will be the end of it.
He took the gun from her and put a hand on her shoulder. “Don't worry baby, it’s gonna be alright,” he tells her.
But all she can hear are the speakers back through those double doors. They’re playing Strawberry Fields. She remembers an interview she watched once when John Lennon was talking about what that meant. “Strawberry Fields,” John said, “It’s that place, that place you want to be. It could be anywhere. All you gotta do is just… go there.”
At last she looked up into his eyes. “I won’t talk,” she said.
