Sinners Circle by Karina Sims Read Free Book Online Page B

All the
bright orange food sealed inside a plastic bag. Between another loud cough over
the PA and my left ear popping, the thought hits me that maybe this is how they
get us—the lions I mean. They feed us this orange shit so we can’t move fast
enough to get away, or we consume so much that this crap actually starts
gnawing away at our brains, children with developing cognitive skills are
slowed down by the high doses of preservatives and cheese coloring until they are
too stupid to realize that the very real danger of death is upon them. I look
down the aisle at a woman with an ass so big she could be smuggling a locker
room’s worth of basketballs in her shorts. I put the bag back and wipe my hand
on my shirt. Call me crazy, but I’d rather be a cannibal than a walking sack of
human fat.
    I don’t grab much. Just some
ready-made blueberry pies, some oranges, a loaf of bread. Even though I know
where they put it, I ask a cute girl with a price gun where the hair dye is. I
drop a box of black into my shopping basket and wait in line. Whether you
choose to or not, in America you have to follow the lives of celebrities. Whether it interests you or not, you still
know the basics of who’s who, who’s marrying so and so, and when
what’s-her-face is apologizing for getting caught drinking and driving again.
You know this because you buy bread. Or you buy dish soap or discounted jeans
and you pay for them at the till and at the till is a long rack of celebrity
magazines with carefully placed much needed items you may or may not have
forgotten to buy while browsing. Items like shaving razors, double A batteries, tooth brushes and breath mints. These items are of course
the most expensive brand names on the market, this is
why they put them here. Impulse spending is the staple of our economy; when you
buy an eight dollar triple blade razor because you don’t have the time to run
back to the aisle where they sell them in bulk for half the price, because you
didn’t remember, because you’ve been stuffing your brains full of that orange
food so the lions can get you, you’re not just adding an extra line of black
ink to your receipt, you’re applying the glue that keeps the economy together.
Besides, who’d want to run back and grab a shaving razor when you just find out
what’s-his-nuts parading on the cover of People magazine is the World’s Sexiest Man Alive. But it’s not enough to know who won,
but who could have one, so you buy it
so you can argue with your friends about it on your cell phone on the drive
home.
    As much as you may like it, or
dislike it, it’s a fact. Your involvement with the rich and famous is no longer
a choice, even if you hide in your house all day reading the Bible and loading
your guns, sooner or later you are going to have to buy toilet paper when the
phone book runs out of pages. So you will have to come here, and you will have
to look at everyone of these magazines with yellow
letters that burn into your brain before you can stop yourself from reading
“DIVORCED” or “BACK TO REHAB.”
    However, today is lucky. Today,
the ladies in line aren’t pawing over glossy covers with smirking models they
could never look like. No, today the ladies in line are burying their faces
inside a newspaper, mouths ringed like they’re sucking a Cheerio. In between
swiping items across the counter even the cashier is glancing at a copy lying
open beside her. Everyone’s got the paper folded and askew so I can’t really
see what’s on the front. The rack where they keep the local newspaper is empty.
I stand on my tippy toes for a second, look around then back at the empty tray.
I notice there’s a copy crammed at the bottom with the Wall Street Journal . I pick it up and flip it over to the front.
    “Model/Waitress
Found Slashed In Apartment.” There’s
a big color picture of her in her high school graduation robes, blonde, pretty
and smiling. Midway through the article are enlarged letters