A Matter of Minutes

Twelve minutes. It can make all the difference. Between everything and nothing. Between a normal life and, well, whatever this is. Breathing was rough as I thought back on those fateful minutes. Fifteen minutes ago, I was in my car on the phone. My apartment was running low on eggs and bread, the two things we go through most regularly. So, after coming home for the night, I called Ricky, one of my roommates, to check on what else I might should grab while I was at the store. He kept better track of our shit than Dennis or myself. Besides, Dennis is out doing god knows what. Or god knows who, though it was still probably a bit early for that.

“Ricky,” I said aloud, the phone’s bluetooth linked up with my car, “Can I ask you a thing?”

“What is it, Harrison?” Ricky asked, halfway between exhausted and exasperated. Makes sense, he just got off of work too, and talking to me can be an exhausting prospect at times.

“We don’t got enough eggs for tomorrow morning, so I’m running out to grab some. Bread, too, cause buying them together is generally the right move. Anything else we need?” I asked in reply.

There was some noise happening in the background. He’s getting on or off the subway. Finally, after a few seconds of relative silence, he responded, “Give me a couple, man, I’m almost back home. The only other thing I know off the top of my head is I think we’re also running low on bacon, but not that low, so if it ain’t on sale, don’t worry about it too much.”

I nodded along in my car. “Alright,” I replied, “But try to hurry up. I don’t want to spend too much time wandering aimlessly around the grocery store. Picking up eggs and bread, then checking for a bacon sale, is gonna take at most five, and we both know a couple minute timeframe for you can be anywhere from two to twenty minutes long.”

I heard a deep sigh over the phone. “Fine, but if I rush and get there before you’ve done all three, you have to buy me a donut, too,” he half-joked.

“Deal,” I half-joked right back. It was half-joking because I would do it, even though he wasn’t entirely serious about the demand. It was an excuse to buy donuts, and a lack of good excuses were the only thing holding me back from grabbing donuts every time I went to any store vaguely near a place that sold donuts.

He hung up the phone as I rolled up to the half wrecked parking lot. It’s never been in good shape. Not since we moved in a year and a half ago, at least. But the spaces over by the rundown grocer’s were mostly fine. And, on the plus side, the parking lot that looked like it was straight out of a warzone meant basically only locals use this particular shopping center. So there’s only four cars in the lot this late in the evening. I pulled into a parking space, a couple over from one of the cars parked right next to the grocery store. I put the car into park and shut the engine off, taking an extra moment to check around the lot for anything unusual. A couple local kids were hanging out apparently innocuously over by the closed down fast food spot at the other end of the lot. Destiny and her sorta gang, relaxing how they know. I gave them a quick head nod before heading into the store.

Three minutes later, six after I had called Ricky, I was on my way back across the back of the store to check out the bacon, eggs and bread already in the cart. As I was pushing the cart past the meats section, he called me back. I picked up the phone. “What’s up, Ricky?” I asked.

“Did I make it?” he said, like he’d just recently recovered from being out of breath.

I reached the bacon. “By a matter of seconds,” I answered honestly, “Just made it to the bacon. What do we need?”

“Woo,” he said, taking a moment to breathe, “Donut time in no time flat.” Then, after composing himself, Ricky rattled the list off. “Anyways, Dennis is running low on his salt and vinegar chips. We’re good on filters, but our coffee is running kind of low, and I don’t want to risk it on the faith Dennis isn’t going to need a late night pot this week. We’ve only got three of my Natties left, so if a case is on sale, it’d be great for you to pick it up. Don’t worry about your craft shit, you’ve got plenty. Cheese, preferably pepper jack. There’s only one more of those little tubs of your hummus, so you might want to pick another one or two up. And we’re down to the last bottle of orange juice.”

I nodded as I put the on sale bacon into my cart. “Got it,” I replied, then repeated his list. “So, it’s Salt and Vinegar chips, coffee, pepper jack cheese, hummus, orange juice, and a case of Natty.”

“The bacon and the case are only if they’re on sale,” he insisted. He always insisted on that for his shit. I still always picked it up. I could afford the extra dollar well enough, and it probably saved at least that much on gas by removing the additional trip.

I said, “Of course,” lying through my teeth. I think he was suspicious of how often things he vaguely wanted were ‘on sale’ when I went to the grocery store, but he had never confronted me about it, so I chose to ignore that suspicion. “See you soon enough,” I added, a clear indication I was about to hang up. The bacon actually was on sale, so there’s that.

He quickly added on his own, “Don’t forget my donut!” I chuckled at that as I hung up the phone and went back to shopping.

I continued around the store, collecting the rest of the list. The store was running low on hummus, so while I’d really have liked to grab a few, I only took one of the two in stock. The case was on sale as well, making me technically not a liar. The best kind of not-a-liar. The jack and chips were also on sale. The coffee wasn’t, but they had one of the giant vats still in stock so I grabbed that one. The orange juice was buy one get one, so I grabbed two bottles, even though we probably didn’t need both right now. Finally, I swung by the baked goods on the way out, to pick up a pair of donuts. One for the victorious Ricky’s celebration of speed, and one for my own concession for mistiming the grocery trip.

About six minutes after my roommate’s call ended, I was back in the parking lot, loading up my trunk with the groceries, while munching on my donut. I know I should’ve saved it for back home with Ricky in celebration of his victory in the bet, but I felt like having it now and self control was never really my strong suit. Finishing the donut and returning the cart to the store’s entrance I started up my car and pulled out of the parking lot, giving the youths one more polite nod on the way out.

I was less than a minute into the drive back when it happened. An eruption, from below. The street itself seemed to burst to fiery life. Not that I could tell the details. So began the longest thirty seconds of my life. With fire and motion. I was driving around a split, where the through traffic entered an underpass in the center of the street while residential traffic like myself went around. It was likely the only thing that saved my life in the moment. Because the through lanes were what exploded. They flung me and my car off of the road, hurtling through the air towards the nearby sidewalk and building. The car flipped in the air, crashing into the ground on the top, then rolling onto the drivers side. It hit something that twisted it mid flip. Maybe a secondary explosion, maybe some solid thing on the side of the sidewalk. Honestly, I couldn’t tell. I had no control, and for some reason, all I could think about was the eggs in the trunk. How they were definitely broken. What on earth we would do without them. At some point near the end of the flip something serious must have broken, because I smelled an unpleasant odor. The gas was leaking. No explosion to worry about, uncompressed gasoline doesn’t actually explode all that well, it just burns. And besides, I was only at like a quarter tank. But that fact didn’t help much, while I sat there, stuck lodged against a wall, watching through the cracked window and by means of a mirrored store front, as a small, multicolored line dribbling its way towards the flaming street. As those long thirty seconds ended and the line of gasoline lit aflame, I had a sudden, unproductive realization. The fire was probably going to melt all that cheese, too. Twelve minutes earlier, I’d been walking into a grocery store, for this pay period’s grocery trip. Everything was normal. And now, disoriented, upside down, and unable to move as a fire rushed towards me, I can’t help but wonder what happened.

Suddenly, movement. Sand or some such thing - maybe some old deicing salt? - is dumped on the trail of fire. Then, the car begins to shake. Another explosion, distant. Not what is causing the motion. The car falls on its partially melted wheels with a thump. I can see what caused the motion. The kids. Destiny was the one dumping the salt on the fire. One of the others, I want to say George or something close to that, used a crowbar to pry the door open. “Mister Harrison,” he says, “You good in there.”

I’m still in shock. Confused. Concerned. “Uh,” I barely get out. Another explosion, less distant.

After looking at me briefly, the kid suddenly becomes extremely concerned. “Mark, Dest, he’s bad,” he shouts to the other two here. Bad? I don’t feel that bad. I didn’t feel much at all, because of the adrenaline, I suppose. I force myself to look down. A shard of glass is in my side, between a couple of my lower ribs. But the car has safety glass. Looking at the pried open door’s window, I correct myself. Had. Looking over, I see the storefront I crashed into. Glass. Like what I watched the flames in. But broken. I have a store in me this time, I joke to myself as things begin to dim. I feel myself get moved. I’m not sure why. I begin to drift. Asleep, but not quite feeling like I do as I fall to sleep.

Then, suddenly, for the first time in the accident, I feel pain. Sudden, continuous, all along my side. I shoot back awake. The shard is out, held by Mark to ward off passersby with ill intent. I realize the pain. I’m on my wounded side. In the fire. “The Fuck,” I shout.

“Oh, thank god. Asshole.” Destiny informed me from behind. I twist around off the fire looking at my side, it’s very badly burned. But not actively bleeding any more.

“How long was I lying there?” I asked her.

“Only a minute or two,” she replies. There were more than the two from earlier around. The rest of her gang, along with the others at the shopping center had gathered. Shopping. Crap. I flip open my phone. No service. “Listen,” she says, “Now that you’re not dead, we’re heading back to the center. It’s bad, but still’s got a pharmacy, food, alcohol, and a kitchen. Don’t know what’ll work, but it seems like a better bet than most places.”

I nod. “Okay,” I say, each breath a struggle for my badly burned lungs. “Okay. No service. Go. I need to check. Ricky. After that, we’re there.”

“You sure?” she asks, “You don’t look great.” I give her a look, and she knows I’m sure. “Fine. Don’t die, dipshit,” she adds. Then she whistles and the gang and other locals gather up and head back.

I take a deep, painful breath, then head into the city. Towards the additional explosions.