Inside the canned foods aisle, like the police in search of a missing child or a murder suspect, Eddy was searching for a specific can of noodles for dinner. He had just gotten off of work and was very agitated, knocking over cans of soup and beans, refusing to pick them up until he’s found his holy grail. On top of that, Eddy’s stomach was growling. The store was very desolate and empty along with the streets and intersections, there wasn’t a soul in sight. The only people there, that Eddy knew of, was the tired cashier and himself. As he looked for his noodles, the buzz of the overhead lights rushing him and making his search more painful and sloppy, he heard the sound of the automatic doors opening.
“Who else is up at this time doing their shopping?” Eddy thought to himself, he then dismissed the thought and went back to looking for his dinner. At this point the store’s music turned off, they were close to closing time, the only sound left was the hum of the fluorescent lights and the cans that he was moving around in search of his noodles. As he thought he was getting close to finding his food, he heard the faint sound of shuffling feet growing ever so slightly louder. A few seconds later, a strange man appears from the left of the aisle entrance.
“There’s something off about this guy,” Eddy thought to himself. The way the man noticed him, muttered to himself, and stopped walking to turn toward him made Eddy’s hands start to warm up and his whole body start to sweat. It gave him that nervous feeling when you know that someone is watching you. He didn’t give it much thought and kept searching for his noodles, afterall, he was hungry, and he couldn’t care much about some random person. Although, he did keep his shopping basket slightly closer to him than before. Trying to ignore the sound of the man walking towards him, Eddy tried his best to focus on his search. As the man got closer, Eddy found it hard to focus on looking for the canned noodles. He could tell that the man was standing behind him, he could almost hear his breaths and at one point he thought he could feel the heat coming off of the man’s body. His heart started to beat a little faster,
“Why is this man behind me?” Eddy wondered. His mind raced with thoughts, each of them worse than the other and all of them making him sweat more than before, like the feeling of anxiety when you hear a foreign noise in your house late at night. The feeling that something unexpected could be behind the bedroom door, the anxiety you get when you decide to face your fears and open the door without knowing what horrors you could face. The shaking of your hand while you reach for the doorknob, trying to convince yourself that there’s nothing to be scared of while you quickly open the door. The slight increase in heart rate when nothing’s beyond the door, for whatever was there before was now gone or maybe there wasn’t anything at all. But this wasn’t the case for Eddy, he knew that there was someone behind him, he just had to open Pandora's box and turn around. Before Eddy’s mind even thought of turning around, the man nervously said,
“He..llo”. In an instant, Eddy flipped around to face the man. It was at that moment when Eddy was able to get a good look at the man. The man was wearing raggedy brown boots with a hole in the left shoe, a slightly darker brown trench coat covering the majority of his body, the sleeves hiding in his pockets as if showing any skin would cause him to melt, even his legs were covered. Then at the top of his figure, laid a brown hat in which Eddy could only assume was from a past cowboy. But the final and most strangest thing was that the man was wearing sunglasses. The man's clothes were stained with who knows what liquids and had multiple holes that could've been mistaken for a minefield. At that moment Eddy realized who the man was and what he wanted,
“Sorry I don’t have any money,” Eddy sighed in relief, “And why are you wearing sunglasses? The sun isn’t out at this time.”
“Oh.. I’m not.. looking.. for money,” the man replied, slightly shocking Eddy. “Do you know where.. the canned food aisle.. is?” the man asked, pausing between his words.
“We’re in the canned food aisle..”, Eddy was slightly starting to get a little weirded out by the man,
“See, I knew that!” the man muttered to himself. The man was speaking in an unusual way, Eddy didn’t know what but there was something a little off about this man.
“Could I.. purchase a couple of these?”,
“Oh sir, I don’t work here, I’m just a shopper.” Eddy replied. The man seemed a little taken aback,
“Oh yes, I’m also just a.. shopper.”
“There should be someone at the counter to help you.” Eddy told the man.
“Where can I find the.. counter?”,
“The counter is at the front of the store, near the doors.” Eddy said, sighing in relief because he thought that the man was finally about to leave.
“Sorry,” the man said, “I’m not from around here.” Eddy started to get curious on where this man was from. Before, Eddy assumed the man was homeless and that he stumbled into the store after seeing the lights on.
“Where are you from?” Eddy asked.
“I’m from Mars.. achusetts! Massachusetts! I’m from Massachusetts..” the man said, stumbling over his words. Eddy thought that it was a little strange how the man misspoke, but he didn’t make any quick judgments. Instead Eddy started to investigate,
“What part of Massachusetts are you from?”. This question clearly made the man uncomfortable, he started to tense up. He was clearly trying to think of an answer, and quickly.
“The city area.” the man replied, getting more calmed after his response. Not even ten seconds afterwards, Eddy quickly asked another question,
“What do you do in the Massachusetts city area?”.
“Things,” the man responded, trying to keep it cool.
“What things do yo-”
“What’s your name?” the man quickly asked, interrupting Eddy’s previous question, he was clearly uncomfortable and frustrated with that question and was trying to change the conversation topic.
“Oh, my name’s Eddy, what’s yours?” As quick as the man’s thinking was, it left him right back where they started, with him being backed into a corner more annoyed than before.
“Oh, my.. my name?” the man replied, sounding quite confused. “Oh! My name is.. Raw.. berd.. Rahpert.. Robert!”
“Did you forget your own name?” Eddy quipped.
“I did not forget my own name,” the man said in an angry tone. The man’s posture started to slowly change, as if he was angered from the comment that Eddy had made. It was at that moment when Eddy noticed the hands in the man's pockets start to shift, as if he was clutching onto something inside his pockets. All of a sudden, all of Eddy’s posture started to collapse, his shoulders drooped and there was fear in his eyes, all the confidence that he built up went crumbling down.
“What does this guy have in his hands?” Eddy feared for the worse.
“Sorry,” He replied hastily, “I was just joking,” Eddy had to act quickly to revert his past comment.
“Oh, it’s okay,” the man replied, his hand still fidgeting around in his pocket. As if he was trying to get a firm grip on something. In the next moment, something truly peculiar happened while the man was talking:
“Do you know where the vitamins are? I need –”
Cough.. Cough. There was a sound as if someone coughed in the chest of the man. Eddy noticed this sound immediately, everyone would’ve noticed it, people don’t cough from their chest, the man’s mouth didn’t even open too. Even the man noticed it, he even slightly flinched when it happened, as if it had caught him off guard.
“Please excuse me,” the man said while he quickly hurried around the corner behind the shelf, leaving Eddy in confusion.
“What just happened!?” Eddy wondered, “That isn’t a normal thing for someone to do,”. Eddy stood there for about a minute trying to decode what he had just witnessed. He tried to give the situation any logical explanation for why that happened, none of them worked. He then had an idea, an idea that required him to be confrontational. Eddy’s dinner searching quest would have to be put on hold for the moment, his curiosity getting the better of him. He was much more confident now, knowing that the man was startled by the cough. He decided to follow the man and see where he went. It didn’t take too long for Eddy to find the man, he was just standing behind the corner of the shelf muttering something to himself. Without being seen, Eddy stood behind the corner and tried to listen in on what the man was saying,
“..I think he knows..” the man said quietly.
“Yeah thanks a lot Globby..” said a voice from the man’s legs.
“Shut up Glorpia! I tried to tell you guys! I couldn’t hold it in,” exclaimed the voice from his chest. “It isn’t my fault that Glorpert talks too much!” Globby told the group. While the group argued in muted whispers, Eddy tried to get close enough to hear the rest of the conversation. Leaning as close as he could to the shelf, resting his elbow on one of the ledges, he moved in as close as he could.
“It’s okay, we can just take his brain, that’s what we were going to do anyways, right?” said Glorpert. “Globby do you still have the machine?” he asked.
“Yes, I have it in my hands,” Globby explained.
“Good, we can go back and we can just take his –”
Crash– In that moment, three cans of tomato sauce fell to the ground. As quickly as he could, Eddy turned around to try and stop the rest from falling to the ground.
“Hey! He was listening to us!” Glorpia exclaimed.
“Now wait a minute,” Eddy tried to calm the situation down, “I was just.. I was just looking for my dinner!” Eddy scrambled for any explanation he could find. Anything to get him out of the situation he was in.
“I just need to find my noodles and then I’ll be on my way!”. Anything Eddy would say would not affect the outcome of the situation, he had already dug his own grave the moment he went to listen to the man’s conversation, curiosity had killed the cat. As Eddy was rushing for another thing to say, fueled by his fear, a small green arm reached out of the middle of the trench coat holding a small metallic wheel. Small enough to have been the steering wheel of one of those little children’s cars. The object was silver and metallic, it shined as if it was brand new, Eddy thought that if he looked hard enough, he might be able to see his reflection. It wasn’t long before Globby turned the wheel and a little blue laser shot out of the middle and into Eddy’s stomach.
“Oh there it is,” Eddy said to himself, noticing the can of noodles on the ground. He picked up the noodles and proceeded to get up and off of the dirty grocery store floor. As he ascended, his legs ached as if he had been sitting there for hours searching for his meal. He put the noodles inside of his green plastic basket and proceeded to walk towards the checkout counter, none the wiser to what had just happened to him.
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