To Each Their Darkness by Gary A. Braunbeck

Author:Gary A. Braunbeck
Language: eng
Format: mobi
Publisher: Apex Book Company
Published: 2010-12-12T06:00:00+00:00

Edna Warner stands in line at the grocery store and thinks to herself, The damn meat’s gonna start thawing if she takes any longer.

The young woman in front of her is riffling through a small stack of food stamps. The cashier exchanges a quick, exasperated glance with Edna, one that says, I’m really sorry, ma’am, but there’s nothing I can do. Edna smiles in understanding, though it’s a forced smile. Why did it seem she always picked the slowest line in the store? Just her luck, getting stuck behind a welfare case who doesn’t have the sense to have her food stamps out and ready.

She takes a tissue from her purse and blows her nose, quietly, as a courteous lady is supposed to do. Why she felt compelled to stick her head in the pet store earlier would probably always remain a mystery to her, but that puppy in the window had been so cute. It never occurred to her that the pet store would also have cats. Edna is severely allergic to cats, couldn’t even be near someone who owned the terrible things because people who owned cats always had at least a little shed fur on their clothes, and that’s all it took to make her allergies go crazy.

Luckily, that was a few hours ago, and she’s had a chance to take some non-drowsy allergy medicine, so now she’s feeling much better, for which she is grateful. The last thing she wants is to be all stopped-up and red-nosed when Joe gets home from work. He always says it’s hard for him to eat at the same table with her when she’s like that, eyes all puffy and nose running like it was trying to win some kind of race.

Sometimes, her Joe can be awfully high-maintenance.

Edna busies herself with looking over the headlines on the tabloids in the rack by the checkout lane; this star has gained weight, another one has entered Betty Ford, someone else is having an affair. It’s actually quite funny, when you think about it, how these newspapers try to make stars’ lives seem even more dramatic than the characters they play in the movies; as if splattering all their troubles on the front page will make them seem like regular folks. We have problems just like the rest of you, these stars’ faces seem to say.

Sighing, Edna checks her watch and sees that she’s been standing here for almost five minutes. The young woman in front of her hears Edna’s sighing, and smiles at her in apology. Edna is at first embarrassed to have been found out, then struck by how sad the young woman’s smile is and—Lord!—how tired she looks. There are dark crescents under the young woman’s eyes that stand out against her pale skin and make her smile seem even more cheerless. For a moment, Edna almost feels bad for having drawn attention to the awkwardness of the situation—the poor thing looks like she hasn’t slept in days—then thinks again

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