chapter 9 of 10, 6.8k
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“Do you think fruit loops have different flavours, or do they all taste the same?” Chimney asks, a box of the colourful cereal in his hand.
“I don't think I've had a fruit loop since I was seven,” Buck responds.
“That explains a lot about you.” Chim puts the cereal in the cart and moves on.
“Weren't we here to pick up dinner?”
“I'm just getting the essentials.”
“Uh-huh. Ooh get—” he gestures at the shelf.
“Hot Cheetos,” Chim finishes for him. “I like the way you think.”
Chimney throws a bag into the cart and continues on.
(“Get hot Cheetos,” Buck said, pointing from behind the cart.
“We're just here to get what we need,” said Eddie. It was one of those days where they realized after a long week that they had absolutely nothing to throw together into a meal.
“We need them,” Buck said. Eddie gave him a look. “Seriously. Essential to my survival.”
Eddie rolled his eyes and picked up a bag. “Alright, well, if it'll keep you from dying on me.”
“Yeah, yeah. Don't push it. What do you want for dinner?”)
“What do you want for dinner?” Chim says.
That’s about as deep as the conversation goes for as long as they’re shopping. It's so mundane, but somehow exactly the sort of thing that keeps him missing the past.
It takes them another hour before they're finally at the checkout.
“Oh, hang on,” Chimney says, glancing back towards the store. “You go ahead and grab this stuff, I’ll catch up. Forgot to get butter.” Then he disappears back into the aisles of food.
The man at the register is an older fellow, reading glasses on the tip of his nose as he pages through a magazine, the cover of which is sporting some overly edited photo of a plane with the headline: ‘Time Travel or Resurrection? The True Story Behind the Mystery of Flight 242’. Buck rolls his eyes and starts unloading his basket onto the counter.
The man peers over his glasses at him, then slowly folds his magazine over and sets it down to start scanning his items.
"You know that plane that went missing?" he says, tapping on the article with two fingers.
"What?" Buck says sharply, almost dropping his wallet.
The man chuckles, either oblivious to or unbothered by Buck's tone. "'Course, everyone in the world knows about it by now. They're still writing about it. Hard to find anything more exciting than that to report on, I guess.” He pauses. “Jumping five years into the future, isn't that crazy?"
"I wonder what it would be like to time travel."
"I bet it sucks,” Buck says, snatching the bags of groceries and walking out without looking back.
