nothing in particular

A quiet story about belonging.

He had been going to the supermarket in the evenings for a few months, though never for anything he needed. He always bought something, to make the visit seem ordinary. But he knew it wasn’t.

There was no confusion about that. The habit had formed in full view of itself. What kept bringing him back was harder to name, though not entirely unclear.

The route through the aisles was rarely planned. It was as if he was guided by an external force.

The store felt controlled, big, spacious, clean. Nothing personal attached itself to it. Everything was arranged, labelled, replaceable; if something was taken away, something identical filled the space.

It wasn’t warm or cold, welcoming or hostile. It was neutral, contained, predictable, almost clinical. He had once heard a priest describe communion as a kind of nourishment along life’s journey, and the thought had returned to him here.

He turned into the household aisle without deciding to. His phone lit briefly. The football scores were still the same. He glanced at them and slipped the phone away again.

If he stayed in the store long enough, and paid attention, it was possible to become familiar with its inner life, its rhythm, the way it seemed to breathe. It took time to understand that, and most people never stayed long enough to know her so intimately. List, trolley, checkout, then gone. He wasn’t even sure the staff were on the same frequency.

The bakery smell deepened around seven. The freezers by the vegetables gave off a lower, less even hum. Some of the tiles near the dairy section didn’t quite match, one shade out.

Tonight there were changes in the clothing section at the back left corner. A rail held a new green men’s T-shirt with a camper van on it. That hadn’t been there on Tuesday.

None of this quite satisfied him. Surely it would be more fitting to give this kind of attention to another living person. Instead, it had settled here. The store, without being alive and without being anything at all, had found a way to receive it.

The seasonal aisle had begun to rotate. Paddling pools were gone, and plastic pumpkins had taken their place. Sweets spread slowly across the shelves, taking up space a little at a time.

He noticed a bag of sweets hanging half off a shelf. He set it back properly and patted it lightly into place.

Nothing here changed all at once, and time did not behave the same way inside.

Outside, weeks could slip past unnoticed. Here, things shifted gradually, one shelf, and then another.

He stopped in front of a display without really seeing it. His mind drifted, work, briefly, football again, the washing machine and whether the noise that morning meant it was broken, or whether it had always sounded like that.

He replayed a conversation that had stayed with him longer than it should have. Thoughts passed through one after another. The store made that easier. It kept a part of him occupied, just enough.

At home it was different. Letters lay unopened. Photographs had been turned slightly away. Jobs had been waiting longer than he would admit to anyone. The quiet there was not the same peace that soothed him here.

Around him, people moved with purpose: ingredients, wine, flowers, nappies, charcoal. Their baskets already pointed somewhere beyond this place. They were on their way to something.

For a few moments their paths crossed, in communion beneath the bright lights before separating again.

A mother shouted at her son near the frozen food section, and it reminded him of another evening, when a small child had lain on the floor in the middle of a tantrum while his mother walked away and left him there. A moment later the boy had run after her, crying.

He wasn’t unhappy, just reflective, as though he had stepped half a beat to the side.

Eventually, he picked up a bottle of washing liquid. There were already three under the sink at home, and one was still sealed. He turned the bottle once in his hand, then set it in the basket. Leaving with nothing felt uncomfortable, like he was taking something without paying.

At the self-checkouts, a voice said, “Evening.”

He looked up a moment late. The woman overseeing the tills gave a quick smile, already turning away to deal with a stalled machine. It barely counted as an interaction.

Something in the casual way she said it unsettled him, as if she knew him.

For a moment, he saw himself from slightly outside himself, repeated evenings, the same slow paths through the aisles, the small, unnecessary things in his basket.

He had always assumed he passed through unnoticed, just another customer. The idea that he might have been recognized, almost expected, gave him a fleeting shame.

He paid and stepped back outside. The air had cooled further.

The visit complete, he felt no better exactly, but steadier.

He placed the bottle on the passenger seat, then sat behind the wheel without starting the engine, his hands resting where they fell.

The football scores hadn’t changed.

Ahead of him, the doors opened and closed. People came out carrying bags, flowers, things remembered too late. Others went in, already thinking past the place.

He watched them for a while. Then his attention drifted back to the building, and with it came an uncomfortable feeling, not unlike belonging.