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patchoulipumpkin
Member
since 2000-01-01
Posts 196
Bermuda

0 posted 2000-02-26 12:13 PM



He saw the little girl walking around, staring at everything in sight.  She was lost, but he had forgotten how beautiful children were, because she didn’t care.  Every step away from her security was a new adventure. She saw women’s deodorant, and picked it up to look at the label.  She moved it around in her hands, feeling the ridges on it, and then put it back for someone else to feel.  He had kept his eye on her for the past two aisles in the super market, to see if her mother or father would come and get her, but she seemed a parent to herself, sure of what she was doing, and not frightened by anything at all.  

In the frozen food section, she had the best time, blowing cold from her lips, and feeling comforted by the cold, as if it were a blanket.  He finally decided to approach the girl to see if she was okay.  “Are you lost?”, he asked.  The girl was holding a bag of frozen peas, pushing at the bag, kneading it to break them up, “No”, she said calmly.  “Are you here with your mother or father?”, he asked.  At hearing the words mother or father, a quizzical looked came on her face, “Yes my mum?”.  “Are you sure?”, he asked.  “Yes, my mummy is here too”.  “Do you know where she is?”, he asked.  “No, do you?”, she said.  “No I don’t, do you want to go and find her”.  “If you want to?”, she said and put her hand into his and they left the frozen food section.  “What’s your name mister?”, she looked up at him.  “My name’s Daniel, what’s yours”.  “My name’s Liv, but not like leaves”, she said. “That’s a very pretty name”, he said.  “Its okay”.  

Daniel was going to take her to the front of the store, and ask them to page the store to get her mother to come to the front to pick her up.  “Hey look”, Liv pointed to the cereal aisle, “let’s go see”, and she tugged at his hand.  “Liv we should go to the front to let your Mum know where you are?”, Daniel said.  But she didn’t hear him, as she was already in her own world of cereal characters and cartoons.  She ran down the aisle once, and then back while Daniel watched her. “What are you doing?”, Daniel asked.  “I’m seeing who is looking at me”; Liv said and ran back down.  “See who is looking at you? What do you mean”.  “Come here, you run away from the boxes, and you see what people on the boxes are looking at you when you run away from them”, Liv said.  “Oh I see”, and Daniel thought of the Mona Lisa’s eyes and how they tracked you wherever you walked.  “Okay, let’s see”, so they both ran down the aisle hand in hand, running away from the eyes that followed them, hoping they could be unseen, at least for one instant.  

“They all see me, but I got away from Count Chocula, did you?”, she asked Daniel.  “No, he caught me, but I got away from Mr. Frankenberry up there”, and he pointed up to the top shelf.  “Whoa”, Liv commented, “That’s good, I couldn’t do that”.  Daniel smiled, happy that he could make Liv smile and think.  “I couldn’t even get away from you”, Liv said.  A little worried Daniel asked, “What do you mean Liv?”  “You saw me, when nobody else could?  How come you could see me?”.  “What do you mean Liv?”.  “I’ll show you, come on”, and Liv pushed away some cereal boxes and jumped into the open space.  “Where are you going?”, Daniel asked, “Come on”, Liv said. Daniel looked into a big hole that was created by the empty cereal boxes, “Where are you?”, he said.  “Come on I’m in here”, a voice echoed from out of the big hole.  Daniel seeing that somebody was walking down the aisle, pretended he was glancing at package titles, until he heard another emphatic “come on”, and jumped in the hole.  

It didn’t go anywhere at all, but came out right behind the aisle they were in.  Liv was there, and grabbed his hands, “See now nobody can see you”.  And Daniel didn’t believe her, “Of course they can, watch”, and he walked right up to somebody to ask for the time, but they didn’t even look up to hear him or see him.  “Oh my god, what happened?”, Daniel asked.  “Nothing happened, we’re just in a play dimension”.  “A play dimension?”, Daniel asked, “What’s a play dimension?”.  “A play dimension is where you can go to play, and nobody can see you, and nobody can tell you to stop having fun.  In here there aren’t any Pougies”.  “What’s a Pougie?”, Daniel asked.  “Pougies are little guys, I don’t know, creatures like you see on cereal boxes, that try to make people think they aren’t having fun, and shouldn’t have fun”,  Liv spoke confidently.  “They are on cereal boxes?”, he said.  “They are on everything, but they are biggest on cereal boxes, that’s why I was running away from them to see if they could still see me, and they couldn’t”.  “Cereal boxes are fun though, they have nice big cartoon characters on them”, he said.  “They are supposed to be fun, but the Pougies have tried to make them not fun for anyone anymore”, “let’s go see”.  

So Liv took Daniel’s hand and they walked back to the cereal aisle.  “Do you see them”, Liv said.  “No…not really..”, and then out of nowhere a big flash of color, a darkish purple color was forming around the cereal boxes as someone was staring at them, looking for something to buy.  When someone went to pick up a box, a big swirl of the purplish color came down from a box of Shreddies on the top row and bit the ladies hand.  At this, the lady stopped her motion for one cereal and then looked up at Shreddies, until she reached out for this one and the same thing happened, another dark swirl came from a lower shelf of cereal and bit her hand.  This continued four times, until the lady, clearly frustrated, threw up her hands in frustration, and grabbed at a box of Crispix, and threw it into her shopping cart.  The swirls retreated back into the shelf.  “What are they, I mean what is that”, Daniel asked Liv, “Well they are Pougies”, and looked at Daniel like he had asked the most unintelligent question ever posed.

“Why do you call them Pougies?”, Daniel asked. “I don’t know”, she said in a way that kids say something when they feel they are being tickled into telling the truth.  “Because they are Pougie”, and Liv scrunched her face up; expressing that a Pougie is something undesirable.  “I still don’t understand where we are Liv”, Daniel said.  “It’s a place I like to go sometimes to get away from the Pougies”, Liv said.  “Can you only do this in this supermarket?”, Daniel asked.  “Nooo”, again Daniel was considered an idiot for not understanding Liv’s thoughts, “you can do this anywhere, whenever there are too many Pougies, you can always come here”, Liv finished.  “I still don’t understand what Pougies are”, Daniel said.  “Okay”, Liv wasn’t getting tired with Daniel’s inability to understand. “I’ll show you the cookie aisle”.  

They both walked two aisles over,  and Daniel was waving his hands emphatically at anyone who passed, to hopefully get a response from somebody, because he was feeling extremely light headed in his “new” dimension.  They reached the cookie aisle and Daniel’s mouth dropped open.  The Pougies were so thick you could barely see the people trying to pick a brand of cookie.  They surrounded people entirely, and looked as if they would entirely swallow them up if they stayed there any longer.  “Mr. Daniel, do you see that big man over there”, and Liv pointed to a slightly overweight man wearing a T-shirt that said, “As long as its dead, I can be fed”.  He was one of the people who were almost entirely caught up by the purplish swirl of what had to be some sort of energy, but what looked more like gas. “Yeah, I see him, he’s almost not there”, Daniel said.  “Let’s get a little bit closer, so you can see him better”, Liv said.

They moved within 10 feet of him, and could see that he was sweating a little from his forehead, and he was clutching his hands, in and out, as if he were crushing an orange for juice.  “What’s he doing?”, Daniel asked.  “Well, before he was trying to pick out some cookies, but now he’s stuck in the Pougies, and can’t decide”, Liv said.  “Is he going to be okay”, Daniel asked concerned as he looked at this man that was caught in a swirl that looked like a lightning crowd. “He’ll be fine, he just has to leave first to get something else and then he’ll be back to try again”, Liv said. “How do you know this?”, Daniel asked.  “Because I see him every Saturday, he does the same thing, he tries for Ores, then thinks about Double Stuff, and once the Pougies get at you once, its hard to beat them”, Liv said.  “No big deal, he’ll be fine”, Liv said and took Daniel’s hand.

“Come on let’s go back to the frozen food department”, Liv said. “Why what’s there”, Daniel asked “You’ll see, she said.  As they were walking the four aisles it took to get there, Daniel was beginning to figure it out a little and peppered Liv with questions, “So Pougies are like doubt, second-guessing demons”.  “What is doubt?”, Liv asked. Daniel hadn’t heard her, as he was caught up in his own thinking.  “What is doubt”, Liv asked tugging on his shirt as if she was going to pee if he didn’t tell her.  “Doubt is changing your mind about something, when you think it was supposed to be one thing, you change your mind and choose something else, and then you don’t know which one is the right one, so you get confused”, Daniel said.  “Does that happen to you?”, Daniel asked.  “Yeah, like the time when I went to Jenny’s birthday party and I wasn’t sure which kind of cake I wanted, because I wanted both of them”, Liv said.  “So that’s what Pougies are then, they are doubt mongers”, Daniel was thinking out loud. “I don’t know, they are just Pougies”, Liv explained it clearly to Daniel once again. “Right they are just Pougies”, Daniel laughed.

Arriving at the frozen food department, Daniel was amazed that he could barely see any Pougies at all.  “Where did they all go?”, Daniel asked Liv.  “I don’t know, but I like it here, maybe they don’t like the cold or something?”, Liv said.  “People probably didn’t like the cold that’s why they leave here so quickly”, he thought to himself.  “Why do you like it here so much”, Daniel asked, “it’s cold”, and he rubbed his arms.  “I like it, cause its neat, and there’s a lot of cool things to look at, its like being in one big gigantic freezer”, Liv said laughing.  

“Okay, I’m a frozen can of  orange juice”, and Daniel got on the ground and tried his best to bend his body into that formation.  “ha,ha”, Liv laughed at him.  “I’m a frozen pea”, and Liv hunched down holding her knees.  “Hi Ms. Pea, what are you doing way over here with the juices”, Daniel joked with her.  Liv was smiling, and showing off her extremely bright teeth, “Well…I was bumped over here, when someone picked my family up and a door opened up and I fell out”, Liv said. Daniel was amazed at how creative she was, and enjoyed sharing some of his own.  Now Daniel put on an old southern accent, “Well ma’am, sure is nice to meet you, I’ve been here for a long time, look I’m growing a beard, my goodness”, and Daniel pointed to the freezer burn on a can nearby.  “I shoar wish sumun’ would come and get me so I can retire”.  “I’ll get you Mr. Orange juice”, and Liv picked up the can. “Very nice of you ma’am, I’ll return the favor and bring you back to your family”, and he picked up a frozen bag of peas.  

Liv took him around the whole supermarket exploring all the Pougie hot spots.  The meat counter was fairly normal, while the fruit section was filled with them.  “Hey”, Daniel was now excited, “let’s go see the cookie man, and see if he’s still there”. “No”, Liv said decisively, “I’ve got to get back to my mum”.  “okay”, Daniel said.  “How do we do that?”, he asked her intensely.  “How do you think silly, we go back the way we came”, and Liv laughed at him again as if he were an alien.  “Of course”, and Daniel smacked his forehead.  They got to the back of the cereal aisle and they dived through, luckily no one was on the other side to question why they came hurtling out of the middle of the aisle.  “Wow that was fun”, Daniel said.  “Hope we can do it again sometime”, he said. “you can do it anytime you want”, Liv said, “Closets are good places too”.

Daniel was taking Liv to the front to page her name over the intercom when something occurred to him.  “Liv what did you mean when you said I was the only one that could see you”, Daniel said.  “Nobody sees me, anywhere, people see me, but they don’t really”, she said, “not like how you saw me”. “okay”, Daniel said a little confused but kind of understanding.  “I could tell you wanted to play, most people don’t like to play, so I thought it would be fun to play”.  “It was fun Liv, thank you”, and Daniel gave her name to the lady at the front desk.

Two minutes later Liv’s mum arrived. “Where have you been honey?”, “I was getting a little worried about you”.  “I was just playing mum”, Liv said.  “This is my friend Mr.Daniel, we were playing together”.  Daniel blushed at this, not wanting her mother to get a bad picture.  “Actually Liv was very nice she took me around and was showing me all there is to see here.  She’s a really special daughter”, Daniel said.  “Oh my goodness, I’m sorry if she was taking up your time.  She could take your whole day if you’re not careful”, her mum replied. “Thanks for keeping an eye on her for me, Mr.Daniel”.  “You’re welcome, anytime”.  

“Liv what have you got in your hand”, her mum said.  “It’s Mr. Daniel’s juice, we’re going to make orange juice when we get home so he can retire”, Liv said.  “Is this your juice Mr. Daniel”, her mum asked.  “oh no, it’s Liv’s”, Daniel said.  And then Liv’s mum came in closer to Daniel, “I tell you with her imagination, the sky’s not even the limit, I just hope she can do something with it all”. “I can guarantee you she won’t have a problem, it was a pleasure looking after her”.  “Bye Mr. Daniel”, Liv said.  “Bye Liv, nice meeting you”, Daniel said.  As she was leaving, she looked over her shoulder and said, “Don’t let the Pougies get you”.  “I won’t Liv, take care”, and she left.  

Daniel circled his shopping cart around to catch a final glimpse of the cookie guy who now had one bag of cookies in each hand and was staring right to left, left to right, trying painfully to make a decision. Daniel laughed and tried his best to emote as much empathy as he could, while wondering what would go well with peas for dinner.  



 
quote:
What matters most is how well you walk through the fire
- Charles Bukowski


© Copyright 2000 patchoulipumpkin - All Rights Reserved
Dusk Treader
Moderator
Senior Member
since 1999-06-18
Posts 1187
St. Paul, MN
1 posted 2000-02-26 12:38 PM


I really liked this one!  A creative idea and it sure was fun watching Liv lead Daniel around the store.  Great little adventure, much enjoyed.

 A writer's soul is on paper etched.

In flames I shall not be consumed, but reborn. --
Abrahm Simons



Martie
Moderator
Member Empyrean
since 1999-09-21
Posts 28049
California
2 posted 2000-02-26 06:17 PM


This story was magical--I really enjoyed the adventure.  Good writing!
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