Arts and Crafts: short story

The selection is nice, she thinks to herself. Surface area is multiplied in rows and shelves and displays. Realistically, it's just the same thing repeated, in different colors, with different labels, but the endlessness is calming. Her row is cut off from the rest of the world, as though everyone else has realized that there is something wrong. She doesn't notice.

Her entire world is in front of her, the entire world here, and slowly she works through each basket, each section, carefully choosing each color, as though the right color will be solid enough to fixate on and hold to.

She leans forward to run her fingers over the yellow felt in the bottom row, and the lanyard around her neck swings out with a jingle. She doesn't trust pockets. The lanyard is cumbersome and dowdy, but she carries with with a reassurance, something she's able to hold onto, something strapped into place. The yellow, looking closer, is too sweet, too washed out. She puts it back and stands upright again, the lanyard falling against her breasts. She tries again until she gets it right.

Walking to the front of the store, the path is still a lonely one. There are voices in other rows, but no faces. There's only one cashier, topped with harshly dyed hair, brassy in the store lighting. Her face was drawn on with a matching severity, but the aim was off, and the smudged makeup gives the effect that her face is slowly slipping off. 

She raises her penciled eyebrows at the girl's armful of colors, all perfectly selected. The yellow is now perfectly lemon. She scans the white over and over again, instead of each alone, which the girl is happy about, relieved she doesn't have to let go of the others. 

"It's two fifty," the cashier tells the girl, sounding bored and confused at the same time, as though if she had the effort to care, she might've wondered why. With one hand, the girl opens the pouch on the lanyard, and pulls out three crumpled bills. She hands them over the counter without making eye contact.

The two quarters clink in the pouch strapped onto the lanyard as she walks back outside, but now she grasps the bag instead. It's nice being able to hold onto something.