Groceries and Ghosts

John stared up at the imposing building, feeling like he was about to step into the belly of the beast. Or like he was wearing a leotard and performing ballet in front of everyone who knew him and his future boss was the judge.

His hands tightened around the straight bar, and the weight of his responsibility weighed heavy in his pocket. He stared a moment longer, stenciling the shape of the building, as though it would make the task ahead any easier.

“Mom’s done it a hundred times, what’s different if I do it?” he grumbled to himself.

Green Grocer had humble beginnings, starting from a small weekend stall at the fresh market. In a matter of 5 years, they had chain hypermarkets all across the country, and were expanding into neighbouring countries. One had to wonder at the rate they were growing.

Bright white lights assaulted John’s eyes as he entered. The first thing he saw was fresh produce at the end of the long, wide walkway that marked the entrance. He began pushing his trolley towards it when he felt a light tap on his shoulder. Turning his head to the right, he saw nothing except what seemed to be a light mist. He blinked, certain that his eyes were betraying him.

“Hi, can I help you?”

The voice came out of nowhere. John was twisting left and right, searching wildly for the source, and still wondering why he was seeing smoke.

“If you stop moving, maybe you’ll be able to see me then.”

Curiosity dimming his wariness, he stopped turning his head and allowed only his eyes to roam the space around him. The cloud of mist condensed, taking shape, vaguely resembling a human.

“Can you see me now?” It came from the smoke apparition!

John stared a moment longer, then bolted down the walkway, abandoning his trolley and the shopping bags inside it.

“You do realise you can’t run from me right?” The apparition materialised right in front of him. John crashed right through it, face screwing up in horror. His heart felt like it had thudded its way out of his chest and onto the linoleum floor. “You’re going to draw more than a few head shakes if you keep reacting like this.” People around were beginning to look at him. John was about to call for help when he noticed that shoppers had the same cloud of fog next to them, moving smoothly along with them in the same direction, though none had the distinct human shape of the fog now hovering at a respectable distance from him after he’d collided through it rudely. More astonishingly, those people seemed to be having conversations with the cloud.

Or all of them were raging mad and talking to themselves.

John was stunned. John was too stunned to speak. John was flabbergasted, and quite frankly, John was scared.

“I can’t help you if you don’t start acting like a normal human,” the apparition pointed out. Was that a hint of impatience he heard in the voice? John blinked and focused more intently on the cloud. It did have the fuzzy outline of a human but there were no features or anything to suggest that this thing was indeed a ghost and had once been human.

John itched to run away again. Instead, he reached for the nearest thing to him - a packet of spring onions and waved them at the shape. It broke, as smoke does when an object is passed through it but immediately formed back. John sensed a quiet exasperation in the air around them and wondered if he’d somehow managed to offend the supernatural being.

“It’s not nice to wave things through me like that,” it said. John still couldn’t speak, nor did he want to. Why had his mother sent him to this strange place with talking smoke? Had she known about it? Quietly, he walked back to his trolley and pulled out the shopping list his mother had passed to him.

Eggs, mushrooms, spinach, beans, tofu, onions . . .

The list went on and on, unfurling like a holy scroll of demands. As he scanned it, John pondered on the dimensions of their fridge and whether it could hold this much food without vomiting anything out each time the door was opened..

“I see you have a long list there,” the apparition observed quietly. “Do you know which sections you need to visit to get these?” It was as though the . . . thing could sense that this was his first time shopping. John stared straight ahead. He had no clue where he would find these things but the fresh section looked like a good place to start. He refused to look directly at the smoke. If Sixth Sense had taught him anything, it was that looking at strange wraiths would bring nothing except nightmares and an aversion to opening any form of doors on his own for fear something horridly disfigured would peep out.

“I suggest you get all your vegetables first. Then move on from there. You won’t have to double back if you do it that way.”

It was incredibly helpful advice, even if it was unsolicited. John accepted it silently, still carefully avoiding eye contact. He kept his trolley out of the way, pushed up against a pillar. It just seemed convenient to do so, allowing him to maneuver around the islands of vegetables and fruits and the people milling around them without hindrance.

John plucked out what he needed, going through the list smoothly, guided by his ghostly companion. He was having a hard time picking out the tomatoes and leafy vegetables. Some looked too red, some too yellow, some had specks on the leaf, some had bruised stems. He wasn’t sure if these could be used or not. Other things all came uniform and neat, so obviously these had to be the same too, right?

“Why are you picking it like that? That one was perfectly fine!” The apparition stretched out a smoky arm towards the tomato that he had just placed back onto the pile. It had a slight brown scar on the skin from where it had been nicked by a blade but other than that, it was perfectly juicy, round, and inviting.

“It’s got that brown mark, and it’s too light coloured,” John muttered, unaware that he was now engaging with the apparition.

“You can just take that one there.”

“The skin is peeled at the bottom.”

“This one is fine.”

“It’s not green enough.”

“What about this?”

“Too hard.”

Once John was satisfied with the selection of fresh goods in his trolley, they moved on to the dried goods, quiet companions gliding swiftly through the aisles. John was right: every other shopper had a similar apparition with them as they picked out their necessities. He could hear the humans speaking, not the apparitions. Everyone seemed quite at ease with the smoky phantoms. He finally dared to look over at his own ghost, a pool of questions suddenly bubbling up in him. The apparition’s demeanor had soothed his initial unease and now his curiosity outweighed his discomfort.

“Can everyone see and hear you?”

“They see me as a cloud, that’s all.”

The pair meandered on along the cereal aisle, John glancing from the list to the jumble of colours on the shelves.

“Cheerios are to your bottom right.” The apparition waved at the cereal, wisps of its being wafting over John’s skin. It was not an unpleasant feeling: it felt like fine mist from waterfalls or rain touching his arm. Wordlessly, John reached for the cereal. He hesitated for a second then snagged a box of Milo Balls.

“That isn’t on the list,” the apparition pointed out mildly.

John simply shrugged. He was almost through the list. All that was left was some milk and flour, which was several aisles over.

“Can you tell me what’s going on?” he finally asked after they had gotten the last of the things on the list and were slowly rolling the trolley to the checkout counters. There was something called “self-checkout” that seemed intriguing but John didn’t want to leave without knowing what had actually happened today.

“I’m your helper,” the apparition shrugged. “I help you get your groceries and keep you company.”

John blinked, struggling to grasp the concept.

“If I come again, you’ll help me?”

“Once I’m assigned to you, I’m stuck with you.”

It didn’t sound too bad. Aside from steering him down the right paths, supplying him with friendly tips and questioning his decision to pick the most perfectly shaped onion, it didn’t speak much, floating beside him in taciturn contentment. John opened his mouth to ask more questions, then decided against it.

“Can you show me how this self-checkout works?”