• The wind gently stumbled through the leaves of the trees, light filtering over and over, reflecting, refracting, doing everything it possibly could... Just to pierce through my eyelids.
    I groaned, turned over, and forced one lid open against it's will. The alarm clock on my nightstand read 8:13 in a persistent beat, blinking incessantly over and over again to tall me that I had missed and was now late for work. Again. With an enormous effort, I got my feet on the ground and my body out of bed, then into the shower. Honestly, I'm not going into detail about that part of my day, not because it wasn't interesting, but because I don't thin I want you to know about what I do in the shower. After my routine cleansing, breakfast was on the agenda. Now that I was already late, I was going to take my time getting to work. I ran through the grand selection of my diet, and once again was amazed by the dazzling display of choices. Pop-tart, off-brand cereal, or some nameless leftover from the depths of the frozen hell that is a bachelor's fridge. A choir sung revels in my brain for the nutrition that I was surely getting.
    It was at least 8:40 on my watch when I finally walked through the automatic doors of the super-mart, dull green apron on that matched every other one in the store, except the managers', which had a golden tag. That golden tag, proudly displaying that the wearer has no life, no prospects. That golden badge of worthlessness glared at me as I walked and clocked in almost simultaneously, waiting for me to finish before chewing me out. Martha. The thirty-year-old faded red-head with a brown hairy mole on the side of her neck, way too much make-up, and a sickening pride in the aforementioned tag of nothingness. The spittle-breathing dragon of the super-mart, ruthlessly protecting her hive of mediocrity.
    I wondered to myself while pretending to be paying attention to Martha's rant why I didn't sit down sometime and use the interesting use of words in my head to get myself out of this god-forsaken place. Maybe as a writer? But that fantasy came to a halt immediately. There was absolutely no way.
    I used to wonder why, when I was much younger, the people working in the store would look so bright and cheery when approached, then turn completely sour when asked to locate something. I know exactly why now. While sitting there, mindlessly stacking carton after carton, can after can in perfect order just so that someone else can take it off the shelf a few minutes later, the average store-worker's mind wanders. We make up fantastic realities in our minds, a happy-place where our brain can auto-pilot without complaining too much. Anything to get our minds away from the horrible redundancy of our lives. When approached by people calling us by name, which we forget is in plain view on our shirts, these fantastic realities span out for us, endless possibilities opening out. For geekier guys, something like the matrix. For simpler guys, maybe a pretty girl wants their number. As for me, I realized quickly that this is a stupid thing to think. I'd just like all the good Karma I've been racking up in this hell-hole for seven years will finally pay off.
    I was staking more boxes of vacuum-sealed garbage that was marketed well enough to be thought tasty, when an elderly man stopped his trek down the aisle. I looked up, box in hand, at him and smiled wearily. "Can I help you, sir...?" I asked him, after the initial pause.
    "I'd like that box you're holding, son." He stated, holding his hand out.
    This struck me as odd. The tone was not harsh, it was calm, polite, almost as if a request rather than a mere statement of fact. And the gesture. He had not taken hold of the box of crap in my hand, but held his own out, palm upward. He could have just taken the box and gone, like any normal person would have, and been on his way. I gingerly placed the box in his hand, almost too shocked to react. "Y-Yeah... Of course."
    The man smiled, and stood upright once more. "Oh, by the way..." He started, and I felt my heart leap. I could just hear him say it, I waited for the words.
    "Good job, kid. Hang in there!"

    Whatever god or gods of fate there are were laughing their asses off, I'm sure. "The eggs are on Aisle three, with the milk." I answered, completely downtrodden. Damned Karma, that's one boomerang that someone needs to return to the store.