ꜜ ﹙ 💳 ﹚ ﹕ needs and nourishment truly had nothing to do with this impromptu field trip to this shitty town's only grocery store⸻ only really meant to fill the time before the next urge for something more intriguing than his futile attempts at sobriety. he should know better by now ﹕ yet something in him still wrestled against his whims, some foolish desire to be good, despite how it often felt this ugliness inside him had always been just another birthright. but the aisles of amrak was hardly the place to think about the human condition, bloodshot eyes bruised by sleeplessness roving across the shelves without focus, as if searching for something and forgetting it in the same breath. and francis slowly pushed his shopping cart, each wheel wobbling in discord, hand hung slack over the side, brushing anything and everything off the shelves, landing into his cart with muted thuds. there really wasn't any rhythm to this aimlessness, cargo piling up in reckless abundance ﹕ ten boxes of cereals, a dozen canned soups, a whole row of instant noodles, etcetera, etcetera, etcetera, none of which would be consumed when he could always just order takeouts from lakeside grill. still, francis pushed on⸻ as if this terribly mundane ritual might stop the spiral that was coming.
but that was wishful thinking, no stopping the tremors in his veins, how the colors in the grocery store suddenly looked too bright, how the fluorescent light now felt too loud. breath became shallow and quick, trying to maintain some semblance of self-control. and overwhelmed with his head swimming, swimming, swimming, francis nearly hit someone with his cart, stopping to a screeching halt just an inch away from colliding against the woman standing near the end of the aisle, inspecting a display of imported chocolates. he didn't know her, but there was something he immediately recognized ﹕ a steadiness he couldn't find in himself. and maybe that was what drew him in— the faint hope that it might rub off on him, even if only for a second. “ hey, ” he started, voice rough and low, almost a whisper, almost like a secret, like it had to fight its way out of his throat. “ do you know where to fuckin' get some, uh ... ” he had to think for a minute, wasn't even looking for anything, just wanted to ground himself to a conversation. but as soon as words failed him, intrusive impulses hijacked his body with the first familiar thought⸻ and francis mimed sniffing something off the back of his hand, rubbing his gums, then even pretended to roll up a sleeve and exhaled sharply, all his gestures ridiculous and frantic. @inlustre
