The Futures Market

Going Once...

"And that's why I think Little Red Riding Hood is about menstruation." Sabrina held her chin up, baiting interrogation.

Zoe's body jerked forward, her shopping basket swinging from the crook of her elbow. "And how does menstruation have anything at all to do with demonic possession?"

The mall was approaching its final hour. Scanner's chirped. An 80's ballad droned in the background of the store.

Sabrina grabbed a jar of tomato sauce from the shelf and held it up toward the florescent lights. She inspected its color almost intimately. "Think about it," she insisted. "Red is walking through the forest, she has blood on her. There's a predator waiting. Her mother instructs her to stay focused on the path. And away from outside influences. She didn't listen. And when she arrives at her destination, the predator has found a new identity."

The store intercom chimed. "Customer assistance requested in the bakery."

"A red hood is not blood."

"In the official version."

"There is no unofficial autopsy of Little Red Riding Hood."

"That is exactly what the Brothers Grimm want you to believe."

Sabrina swapped the tomato sauce for a more expensive brand and dropped it in her cart.

"Fine," Zoe conceded. "Let's pretend the cape is menstrual blood. Where does possession come in?"

"The wolf."

"The wolf eats her."

"That's the child-friendly explanation."

"Being eaten alive is the child-friendly explanation?"

"The wolf is the alter ego. The uninhibited desire that wants the right to say I want, I know, I feel. The right to decide which voice inside the body gets to speak as the self."

"And the menstrual cycle is the bidding war now?"

Sabrina glanced back at her. "Everything inside us is a bidding war."

Zoe smirked and rolled her eyes dismissively.

At the cosmetics display, Sabrina slowed and checked a list on her phone. A tube of mascara went into her basket. Then primer. Two foundations without checking either shade. A contour palette, setting powder, false lashes, three lip colors and a bottle of setting spray followed by a finger to the lip with an expression that wondered if she had enough.

Zoe watched the pile rise around the eggs in her basket. "Getting ready for Halloween?"

"I want to go for a new look," Sabrina said, adding a second eyeshadow palette. "I want options."

"You won't wear half of that."

Sabrina looked over her basket with a mischievously satisfied eye. "Maybe I'm entering a more glamorous phase."

They turned into the next aisle. Feminine products neatly lined the shelves in rows. "The blood is the warning. It tells Red her house has another tenant. Something that changes her appetite, her temper, her mood. It arrives on schedule, rearranges hormones, then leaves her to decide which thoughts are hers." Sabrina took down a box and read the back. "Possession doesn't begin when something alien gets inside you, Zoe. That's a trespasser. An invader. Possession begins when something already inside you becomes offended at the idea of being called anything other than you."

"So, hunger is a sign of possession?"

"Hunger is a battleground. Territory up for grabs." Sabrina tossed the box inside her basket.

"What have you been reading?"

"First the wolf says, you should. Then it says, you want. Give it enough years and it stops calling itself appetite. It calls itself instinct. Then experience. Then, eventually..."

"Wisdom."

Sabrina pointed at Zoe with validation in her grin. "Now you're in the forest."

Zoe shifted the basket to her other arm. "Then how do you know which voice is actually yours?"

"Question it."

"That's all?"

"The self can survive interrogation. The wolf considers questions an attack."

Zoe touched her chin a moment. "And dressing as the grandmother is its final trick."

Sabrina nodded and stepped in close. Then she whispered, "If a lie wants to survive, it puts on the oldest voice you trust."

For a moment, neither of them said a word.

Then Sabrina grimaced. She peaked at the restroom sign beyond the registers. "Hold this." She passed Zoe her basket.

"Is it the wolf?"

"I think she may have a few questions. Just don't crush my eggs." Sabrina walked quickly toward the back corner of the market.

Going Twice...

Zoe continued into the frozen food aisle. When did everything become so expensive? she wondered, walking between the glass freezers. Prices had started reminding her of the haunted house ghosts from Super Mario Brothers. While you watch them, they remain completely still. But the moment you turn, they work as hard as they can to make sure you don't survive.

A stock clerk worked near the opposite end, opening cartons with a box cutter. An older woman stood several door handles away, reading the label on a bag of carrots.

The intercom chimed.

"Attention shoppers," click, click, click. "Preliminary bidding will now begin for Life Story 10-22-90a."

The voice was slower. Smoother.

"Eligible parties may inspect the following inventory."

The stock clerk sliced open another carton. The woman holding the carrots adjusted her glasses. Zoe glanced upward. She looked for some sign posting a raffle or perhaps some charity display she had missed.

"One complete destiny, mint condition." the voice continued."Thirty-four years in original possession. No previous transfer history. Details: internally contested but viable."

Zoe stared at the air for context. Basket handles rubbing her skin red.

"Original holder...

...Zoe Marie Caldera."

The stock clerk ripped more packaging tape. A little girl fogged the freezer glass with her breath and wrote with one finger.

"Contents include one daughter to be, prominent career path in business or an in demand cosmetic influencer―to be determined, two marriages, clean bill of―"

"Excuse me?!" Zoe's voice was loud.

The woman returned the carrots, head tilted, eyes over the rim of her frames as she looked at her phone screen, then grabbed another bag with an organic certification.

"You know the rules. Bid in part, or in whole. Points will be tabulated at checkout."

The older woman turned. Her smile cautiously polite.

"Did you hear that announcement?" Zoe asked.

The woman scrunched her nose. "Which announcement?"

The speaker clicked.

"Original holder has initiated witness verification."

The woman's fingers tightened around the bag of carrots. Then she looked past Zoe, placed the bag in her cart and pushed away.

The stock clerk's box cutter stopped halfway through a strip of tape. He lifted his eyes to Zoe. The two stared at one another across the frozen aisle.

The intercom pulsed with a soft electronic bleep. The clerk looked down and finished opening the carton. Zoe looked behind her at the shoppers casually passing by. Performing their normal routines.

The stock clerk's phone vibrated. Zoe watched it light up in his apron. He sat down his box cutter, took it out and looked at the screen. His thumb swiped once. Farther down the aisle, another phone buzzed in a handbag...beyond the freezers...an adjacent aisle. One after the next. The stock clerk tucked his phone away and began rearranging frozen dinners.

Zoe looked down at her own phone in her pocket. Not a sound.

Near the aisle entrance, a woman in a trench coat stopped beside a seasonal display of cleaning supplies. She lifted not one, not two, but three brooms from the rack and laid them across her cart. Her phone lit up. She looked at the screen, frowned, and returned one broom.

The intercom chimed. "Partial bid received. Ranked status, number one. What is, jumping the brooms?"

Zoe watched as some shoppers repeated the question to themselves. Thinking, changing direction. The woman adjusted the brooms and continued toward dairy. Across the aisle, the little girl wiped away the picture she had drawn in the glass. Her mother checked a notification, opened the freezer door, and removed a jug of milk.

Intercom: "Flash sale on all dairy products, brought to you by today's offering, Zoe Caldera. We thank you for sponsoring today's bid."

The young mother across from Zoe exchanged her jug of milk for a larger one, then took her daughter by the hand and pushed her cart quickly around the corner.

"What the fuck am I witnessing?" Zoe wondered aloud. This had to be Sabrina, she thought. One of her jokes. One of her really elaborate...way too far...jokes.

The other shoppers paid Zoe no mind. They were too busy peering into each other's carts. Checking notifications.

"Those handles are really biting into you."

The voice made Zoe jump.

A store employee stood beside her with an empty cart. Name tag: JEFFERY.

Zoe glanced down at her red forearms. "I'm...fine."

"Of course." He smiled. "Let me combine those for you."

He reached for Sabrina's basket. Zoe pulled it away.

Jeffery's hand remained in the air between them. "It'll be easier at checkout," he said. "Consolidated purchases receive preference."

"Preference for what?"

His eyes slanted but his smile held. "Speed," he replied. "At checkout."

The speaker clicked. "Consolidated holdings will be counted as whole bids."

Jeffery lowered his hand. His eyes softened. His smile widened. "Offer stands." He left the empty cart beside her and walked away.

Zoe watched him stop near the endcap, take out his phone, and type.

Sabrina came out from the restroom corridor fastening her coat. Phone in hand. The screen went dark the instant she saw Zoe look at it.

"Why do you have a cart?" Sabrina asked her.

"Ha ha, Sabrina. Very funny. Tell me what you did."

"What are you talking about?"

Zoe stared at her. Waited for her to flinch. "The intercom said my name."

Sabrina's motion slowed. "What?"

"It said my exact name. It's auctioning parts of my life, like I'm some―used car." Now that she said it out loud, the stupidity she felt was like dead weight.

Sabrina's eyes narrowed. Her head shifted. She glanced up at the ceiling.

Intercom: "Leading bid on vocational inventory has returned to the sales floor."