our mothers used to sing along, who'd blame them

[valdemar]

WOW WE'RE IN A SUPERMARKET you are in a supermarket. you need more cereal, or maybe you want a snack, or maybe you are racing around on a cart, or a cart just hit your car in the parking lot and you're going to kill that asshole, or your bag just broke and there are broken eggs everywhere oh my gosh who designed these bags was it communists??????? i bet it was!

Comments

WHOEVER WORKS BEST

[importexport]

[What brings the Netherlands to the supermarket today is groceries, of course! He grows plenty of vegetables and fruit at home, so he doesn't have to worry aobut too much, but he's sure to come when the prices are best and see what he can do to haggle them even lower if he can.

So right now, he's looking at the bread or something. And by looking, it's more like deeply inspecting. Never before has shopping ever been so serious.]

[fles]

( it's been a very long time since judith has been to a place like this. having been taken from her home and forced to survive in the wilderness, and then in villages stuck a couple hundred years to the past, for five years total… well, maybe it's understandable that she's feeling somewhat awed.

she grew up her in rotterdam, it's not like she forgot, but… it's overwhelming. even leaving her flat was overwhelming. colours, lights, music, labels… it all seems so foreign to her, and it's all the more frightening that it shouldn't feel that way. she's scared. properly scared. she's always scared lately, but…

she walks slowly through the aisles, her posture clearly screaming i am tense and having trouble. the bread, strangely, seems most familiar to her. bread existed over there. it looks and smells almost the same. judith used to be gossipy, bubbly, and a little vain. she tries to be that now. would the old judith have spoken to a complete stranger fondling bread? …well, maybe not.

but she's so tense and anxious and doesn't want to be, that she bursts out with: ) Has it gone rotten? ( there's a slightly strange lilt to her accent. she hasn't really spoken much dutch in the last few years. )

[importexport]

No.

[It's a calm but stiff sounding reply from him before he takes the loaf he's inspecting and sets it in the basket hanging at his arm. He'll give the girl a proper lookover once he's finished with that, though. The question hadn't seemed too out of place. He had been checking for dates and all, too, after all...

But he didn't quite think that it meant he should explain what he was doing with it, either.

The accent he does note, but it doesn't stand out quite as strongly as the way she's holding herself. So anxious.]

Something wrong?

[fles]

( she told her parents she'd eloped with a man and it ended badly, and that was where she'd been the last five years. they'd been furious, but what else was she supposed to tell him? or strangers in the supermarket, for that matter?

she doesn't know how to lie in this situation. she regrets saying anything at all. with a stab towards wry: )

I don't get out much.

[importexport]

[...Huh. And that doesn't quite piece things together for him, though it does lean it in the right direction. Maybe she's got a phobia or something, who knows.

But rather than respect that or anything of the sort, he's just going to bluntly pry. Because. What.]

Why not? [You should at least be getting your proper exercise tbh... Are you a shut in, Judith. Eyeing suspiciously...]

[fles]

Nosy people in supermarkets. ( she says, raising her eyebrows in a yeah, wow kind of expression. in a strange way, she relaxes. she used to be good at this. maybe she still can be. )

[importexport]

S'not nosy. [A touch defensively. He'll shift a bit, though, standing taller to look at her.]

You said something first. [He almost wants to ask if she's lonely or something but even for him that's crossing a bold line.] Need some good bread?

[fles]

You don't see me, asking if anything is wrong with you. ( she replies, grabbing a loaf of bread at random and putting it in her otherwise-empty basket. her grab is clumsy. she's tense, her anxiety is going up. she shouldn't press on, but she does, stubbornly. her stubbornness is what kept her alive there. and now… she can do this. this is nothing. she can be normal and cope. easily! ) So? Is there anything wrong with you?

[importexport]

[Looking at her, looking at the bread, judging the bread, and then looking back at her. Right. His shopping trips are never so eventful.]

I'm not looking like you are, either. [Tense. Freaked out or something. It's not even that she's high at least he'd recognize the signs of that, this is just confusing!!] Nothing's wrong with me, but-- [Just, gesturing with a free arm at her basket.] You could probably get more time out'f a different loaf.

[He put that one back...]