Moths

The parking area is the colour of ash. We park a block away, anticipating turmoil. You walk in front of me with your head lowered, straight black hair tied in a ponytail, snow-white skin shiny with sweat. You glance at the cars full of shouting drivers, at the blazing sky, but you keep walking at a steady pace towards the trolleys, which are usually arranged in rows but now scattered in disarray. I know you’re relieved to see there are some left. I know I am.

This time is worse than during the last January sale, when I didn’t want to come but you insisted. It must have been a punishment for that dinner with my parents. Without turning back, you slightly wave your hand, as you always do, to tell me to grab a trolley. People swarm around, as noisy and disorderly as during that time in January, but the despair in their eyes has a new layer. We stop in front of the automatic door, and it opens.

The inside of the supermarket is a cacophony, sounds bouncing off its corrugated ceiling. Raised voices betray neither age nor gender, feet shuffle, plastic bags rustle, heavy boxes occasionally thump to the floor. At least it gives temporary relief from the unceasing heat.

We should have made a list. We always used to. That is, you always told me to write one and then, in the supermarket, you would give me orders: ‘Take this’, ‘That way’, ‘Dairy first’, scold me for choosing the wrong kind of blue cheese. I can’t believe how happy I was. It’s funny how we can sense happiness only by contrast, appreciate it only when it’s gone.

Now it seems you don’t have any plan. You look aimless wandering around the vegetable department, avoiding cabbage heads rolling on the floor, surrounded by almost-bare shelves still holding a few wilted carrots and Brussels sprouts, amid the restless crowd. How many potatoes will we need? How many onions? you seem to be thinking. Later, when you put bread into the trolley, your eyes look as bloodshot and helpless as when you said you were leaving.

We reach the dairy aisle. We revel in the chill from the refrigerators, our bodies bathed in the bluish glow. You no longer seem to care about the kind of cheese, not that there’s much choice. A corporate-looking woman in her thirties prays while filling her trolley with camemberts and bries. We look at each other and let out a nervous laugh.

When you told me you were leaving, everything became distant. From miles away you said you were exhausted, said it wasn’t working, said you couldn’t handle it any longer, said you were sorry. You told me to move out by the end of the month. That was yesterday. This morning we heard the news.

We used to joke that we’d start drinking again only in our last days on Earth. It goes without saying now we’ll drink ourselves to death, so as we approach the shelves once full of beers, the only thing we’re concerned about is how many cans each of us will drink per day. We decide on twelve. I add five bottles of white wine, just in case. It’s funny, I thought if we’d recovered from the drinking, we could recover from anything.

The ceaseless beeping of the tills makes me think of Morse code signals. I wonder why the cashiers are still working. Out of shock? Habit? Or maybe they were threatened? Before we stand in one of the winding, noisy queues, we take a detour to the pharmacy and grab three bottles of sleeping pills.

In the queue there are screams, there are quarrels, there is waiting, there is me looking at your white back covered with small moles, there is the slight shaking of your hand when you take out your wallet. When we finally walk out into the orange light, we raise our heads as if on command.

The Moth, that’s what we called it, because of its brownish tint and clouds forming patterns reminiscent of a moth’s wings. And the fact it is drawn to us like a moth to a flame. The media call it Nibiru, but we find that too much of a cliché. For now, it’s a pale reddish dot hanging low above the roofs, barely visible in the twilight sky. We would surely miss it if it weren’t for all the fuss.

As we’re leaving the parking area with the trolley packed to the brim, I can’t help but think our nickname isn’t accurate after all. Soon it’s going to be the other way around. In a few days, we will succumb to its gravitational pull, leaving the well-trodden path of our orbit, faster and faster, to finally plunge into the depths of those grey and brown clouds.

The streets are strangely calm. They smell of hot asphalt. Slowly, we reach our car, open the boot and begin to fill it with bread, cheese, vegetables, beer. We do what we’d never do in different circumstances. We leave the trolley on the side of the street. Before you push it down to the ditch, you give me a mischievous smile. We get into the car and drive away.