I was going up the escalator to a supermarket. There were two girls behind me. I slowly felt myself leaning backwards, highly unnaturally, and I grew feverishly embarassed. "It's like I'm dreaming," I thought, "but this is real life. What can I do?" I could do nothing but continue leaning back until I was floating vertically back down the escalator. As I reached the bottom, I saw the girls were whispering about me, and laughing. "This isn't right," I thought. If I can float, I can fly. And fly I did. I flapped my hands and flew, kind of clumsily, back up towards the supermarket. "I can fly!" I thought as I passed others, who looked doubtful. "As long as I don't doubt myself, I can do it. I usually doubt myself, almost always, but right now, I can't. I'm flying!"
There was a boy sitting in front of the store, as if one needed to register with him before entering the supermarket. The boy was someone I'd had a crush on in first grade, and hadn't seen in many many years. Recently, my parents had indicated he was getting married. He'd grown much rounder, and had a beard. And was altogether rather dull to talk to. "Hey, I bet you don't remember me."
"Yeah."
A girl walked by and asked me if I was married.
"No," I said.
"I think you two would make a good match," the girl said.
"No, no," JF laughed, "they've got Korea and everything going for them." As if he were talking about both me and my sister.
"Hah," I said. I wanted to leave, but the sheer strangeness of the interaction was magnetic.
"Is it ok, working in the supermarket?"
"Yeah, it's ok. I took the job over after MW left. You remember that guy right?" MW was another kid from our elementary school. "Would you like some coupons?""Oh, sure, thanks."
As he reached to hand me a store bulletin, I realized he had my diary in his lap among other books and papers.
Immediately I snatched it away, in a panic that he'd see something I'd written about him many many years ago.
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