Alarm clock rings and induces twitching.
The devil sentences me to eight hours of life.
Another day in Purgatory,
earning nada on the nada
and praying for eventual escape from the dungeon.
Ten years of corporate propaganda training films
have quashed the golden childhood assumption
that I’m a unique soul
destined for something… anything… grand.
I dream in bar codes, now.
Walking through the supermarket door,
the heartbreaking symphony sings out before me:
“Price check for kidney beans!”
“Change on register 5!”
“Clean up vomit, aisle 8!”
Cameras in the ceiling
place me under nonstop surveillance,
like Old Testament gods
They watch.
I take my place behind the register,
tray balanced,
mind unbalanced
bleary with the opium of repetition,
humanity forever stripped bare before the spectre of profit margins.
The overhead light above my sad station flicks on.
The unforgiving goons of suburban America
heave their sad boxes onto the conveyer belt.
Suddenly, I am unable to cope.
“Aisle 8 will steal my soul!”, I lament to my supervisor.
“Please don’t let me die to the beeping of an infrared bar code scanner!”
“I can’t face them… Not today… Not today…”
Manager does not take this well.
Banished to the break room for perversion of thought,
I record this chronicle upon cash register receipt paper and scraps of paper lunch bags,
as a prisoner writes on secreted toilet paper scrolls.
Am I doomed to this broken, eggshell existence,
forever checking groceries
in the vast Supermarkets of Hell?
I count the hours until my rebirth.
No spirituality here,
no vision quest,
only tired feet.