Fiction by M.B. Kopchick
Do I need it? Do I deserve it? Will it make me happy? These were the questions she asked herself as she pushed the small, two-tiered shopping cart through the supermarket. The answer was almost always no, so by the time she was walking through the last aisle—frozen single-serving meals and ice cream—her basket contained only bananas, radishes, hummus, and whole grain bread. The hummus was included in the pursuit of happiness. As she scanned the freezer shelf of steam-in-bag vegetables, she supposed she could use some protein and iron and thus selected a bag claiming to contain broccoli, cauliflower, and carrots.
She thought about heading back to the produce section for a bag of baby carrots and then remembered reading somewhere that it takes the same amount of pressure to bite through one’s own finger as it does to bite through a carrot but, out of self-preservation, the brain won’t allow it. Deciding to pass on the carrots, she gnawed at the tip of her pinky finger. As she pushed her cart up to the cashier, she removed her hand from her mouth to place her essential, well-earned, euphoria-inducing groceries on the conveyor belt. Swiping her debit card, entering the PIN—her childhood dog’s birthday—she thought about her pinky finger. Do I need it? Do I deserve it? Does it make me happy? Placing the finger back into her mouth as she set the single bag of groceries in the cart, she thought about her ex-girlfriend, whose favorite way to hold hands was to interlock pinkies, and decided that the finger had played its role and had lived a good life. She bit down, swift and hard, feeling the bone crunch as the metallic taste of her own blood filled her mouth.
Outside the supermarket, she threaded her arm through the grocery bag’s handles and pushed the cart into the corral. She pulled her phone out of her back pocket and bypassed the passcode by tapping “Emergency.” She dialed 911 and sat down on the curb to wait for the ambulance, holding the bag of frozen vegetables against the throbbing stump on her left hand.
