It was Saturday, about three in the afternoon, when I got a call from my mother that Governor Murphy was closing all non-essential businesses and urging citizens to stay indoors. I closed the book I was reading and quickly got up to fetch my key from the keyring on the wall. After snatching my keys, I barreled down the stairs, out the door, and into my car. I kicked the engine over to life and raced out of my apartment complex onto the road.
The roads were barren. On the twenty-minute commute I passed only a dozen cars on a road where a dozen was lined at each of the twelve lights on the long strip of road. It was also odd not to see a single person wondering on the side of the road, or a group of cars being led with an escort with the sign "FUNERAL" on their dashboard. Finally, I arrived into the ShopRite parking lot.
The air felt thin almost hallow, as I entered the gravely hush of the outdoor atmosphere. My car was always one of the twenty-three parked in a distorted parking lot that often held approximately fifty to sixty cars. I was shocked that the place was not mobbed to the gills. I walked into the store entrance where roughly a hundred and fifty shopping carts were neatly tucked against the wall. Beside the massive line was a woman holding a Clorox wipe bottle who was vigorously massaging the handle of her shopping cart to cleanliness. I took drew breath and grabbed a small orange basket next to the sliding glass automated door.
Inside, customers were browsing. All with carts besides me, a fool amongst the prepared. Each person stood at about ten feet in length from one another. A month ago, this place would be crammed like shrimp in a fishing net and the only way to move would be to say "excuse me" repeatedly until an opening arrived to walk. Today wasn't a day of shopping, but a day of fear. Fear of the unknown.
Carefully I moved around people. Looking down some isles that were barren and stripped down to just metal shelves. The pasta—gone. The soup slurped. The tuna—bagged and tagged. People in the isles were moving quicker than normal. Instead of pondering at each item's value, it was being wrestled into the carts like wild game. Mothers moved with their kids quickly down the isles stacking up cartons of eggs and gallons of milk. Elderly women and men with their faces covered in white, using electric chairs instead of walkers. I watched grown men, change direction at the sound of a cough and turn a walk into a speed walk at the drop of a hat. Truth be told, I unknowingly gathered my items at record speed and piled my goods into an open cashier lane.
The young woman at the counter was wearing gloves that were too big for her hands as I dug in my pocket for a TD Bank money envelop. I pulled out a crisp Benjamin and handed her fresh bill. She handed me back $1.78 in change in the palm of her thick rubbery latex gloves. I bagged my items and carried four bags in each arm to the car, with a little pep in my step. Opening the back hatch of my car, I loaded in the bags and hopped in the car. I pulled out of the driveway back onto the road now lit by the basketball orange sun falling from the sky. This story seems like a work of science fiction to some, but to me, it was horror.
