Giant Eagle

When he came to he was staring at the non-alcoholic beer and the mixers. It took him a second to get his bearings. His hands were tightly grasping the stale orange handle of a shopping cart that was presumably his. He was leaning with approximately 65% of his body weight on the cart. He was staring at the non-alcoholic beer and the mixers, and past that the dairy aisle.

The trip through the supermarket was mentally walked through in reverse mentally by the man in less than an instant. Kind of chose your own adventure, where you're trying to recall the last 15 minutes of your life.

This was happening more and more often and during the instantaneous recollection of what brought him to staring at the non-alcoholic beer and the mixers he felt a little worried.

He had just looked at the new issue of Thrasher magazine and got a sense of deja-vu, half way through realizing he had leafed through the exact same magazine only days earlier.

Before that, a trip up the cleaning aisle for some dran-o for the fucking toilet that had clogged again that morning via the paper aisle for some tee-pee and tissue paper, all generic, all on sale. Half-gallon of milk and some O.J., Orange Juice on sale, milk was not. Two birthday cards for two birthday boys and before that some fruit from produce.

Bananas. Bananas contain alot of B vitamins and potassium and help keep the liver functioning when you drink a ton of booze.

He heard the clack clack clack clack clackclackclack clickety clack again in his ears as loud as it had been minutes earlier and the muted small talk of the strangers in motion and he felt like he was going to lose it again, the same feeling of being on edge he had while in produce.

3-300 seconds had gone by and he was still staring at the goddamn non-alcoholic beers and the mixers and wondering why the last five minutes of his life had disappeared as soon as he laid eyes on the O'douls, the O'douls in particular.

'The booze?' he thought,' is this some kind of trigger, my brain is so hard-wired to it, that any kind of stimulus puts me into a daze?'

It had been four days since he had a drink and yet here he was, pavlov's dog, losing his mind over the non-alcoholic beer and the mixers.

Neon lights always got him excited.

He pushed his cart back into the sea of anonymity, checked out, and prepared for the next day, same as every other.