Musings From Derek’s Mind
BUZZ KILL
“Julianne, I need you to take these garbage bags to the dumpster out back,” Antonia Martinez, the grocery manager of Super Savings grocery store, ordered.
Julianne gave her a dirty look as she walked away from the sink in the backroom where she had just dumped a bucket of dirty mop water. She was very short with long blonde hair with orange highlights. With her tiny frame and fair pale skin, she was constantly hit on by customers and her co-workers. She didn’t mind, because she loved all the attention. It helped with her low self-esteem. She walked over to Antonia and grabbed the two garbage bags. She walked out the receiving door without acknowledging her.
She walked down the concrete ramp leading to the dumpster. A guy was standing in front of the dumpster digging through the garbage looking for food he could salvage.
“Can I help you?” Julianne asked.
“I think I found what I needed,” the man said, never looking at her. “I was just leaving.” He got in his truck and drove away.
“Damn freegans,” she said as she threw one of the garbage bags into the dumpster. A bee flew out of the dumpster causing her to run backward in fear. It chased her for a second and then flew away in the opposite direction. Her heart beat fast with fear. She was allergic to bees and normally she would carefully throw the bags into the dumpster without incident. She cautiously walked back to the dumpster and threw the second bag in. When she was finished, she walked back through the receiving doors.
“Are you ok?” Marlena, the receiving clerk, asked. “You are breathing heavily.”
“Yes, I just had an encounter with an angry bee.”
“If you don’t bother them, they won’t bother you.”
“That is just a myth,” Julianne said angrily as she walked past her.
Jason, the stocker working in the organic section, waived at her as she walked out onto the sales floor. She walked over to him. “Hey, slacker!”
“Me? A slacker? I never see you stock anything.”
“That’s because I’m a bagger.”
“Definition of bagger: one who stands around and does nothing all day,” he joked.
“And gets paid the same as you,” she said, laughing as she walked away.
Jason watched her walk away. She was the most beautiful girl he’d ever seen. He was obsessed with her. All the walls in his room were filled with posters he made of her from pictures he downloaded off of her Facebook page. He spent every night dreaming what his life would be like if she was his wife. He had a sinister smile on his face as he fantasized making love to her in the back of his red minivan. One way or the other, she would be his; willingly or unwillingly.
Julianne walked over to the dairy department and faced all the product on the shelves making the department appear to be full. As she heard her name on the intercom, she walked to the front to bag some groceries.
“Julianne, Jason’s staring at you again,” Roberta, the cashier for the register she was bagging at, warned.
“Him, he’s harmless as a kitten.”
“I think he’s creepy. With his hairstyle and the way he walks and talks, he reminds me of Norman Bates.”
“More like Napoleon Dynamite,” Julianne laughed.
“Girls, we’re here to work, not chit chat. We don’t have conversations like this in front of customers,” Deana, the front manager, warned.
“Sorry,” Julianne said to the customer waiting in line.
“It’s ok. I thought it was amusing,” the elderly lady, buying a lot of Fancy Feast, said.
George Thomas watched as the dock loaders of Kellville Bees filled the back of his open semi-truck with boxes of over four hundred bee hives. He was going to transport millions of bees to Mason’s Blueberry Farm. It was taking them longer to carefully fill the truck with the hives. If he was
C. J. Cherryh
Learning to Kill: Stories
John O'Riley
Brenda Sinclair
Christopher George
Stephen Lloyd Jones
Karl Iagnemma
Celya Bowers
Jill Gregory
Aria Cunningham