Blue Eyes: invisible

Kitty walked into the store. She was invisible. She had been walking in the October wind and no one could see her because most of her had blown away. She'd regather though in a few moments, when her fireflies found each other again and found her where they belonged. She bought milk in a blue carton, a small package of thick, moist spelt bread, butter and two bananas. At the soup rack she stopped and stared, trying to remember what it was she wasn't supposed to forget to buy.

Absentmindedly she turned the rack, considering packets of creamy cauliflower soup and of spring vegetable medley. It wasn't soup, was it? she wondered. She liked the concept of soup, felt through it some connection to ancestors stirring all they had into heavy cauldrons over open fires, creating hot meals for their families almost magically. The packets bothered her, though. It didn't seem right to put so much history into such a tight and factory-sealed envelope. She turned the rack one time around, then walked away. It wasn't soup she was supposed to remember. What then?

"Hi. Kitty. Hi." He was out of breathe. He said her name a hard whisper, then sucked in when she turned his way. She wasn't invisible anymore. They were by the cereals where gaudy cartoon characters peered almost spastically out from the fronts of boxes of sugared o's and puffs. He was very handsome. "Hi, Kitty," he said again. "Are you buying milk?" he asked, pointing at the blue carton in her basket. Then he blushed.

"Mhmmm", she nodded. She didn't like the idea of all those cartoon faces watching their awkwardness. She took a few steps to the end of the aisle and looked seriously at the salsa jars. He moved toward her and reached out to touch a bag of tortilla chips, flustering Kitty immediately at the suggestiveness of the gesture, of spicy triangles dipping into hot, deep sauces. She sidestepped two paces and neatly rounded the corner of the aisle, to where the self-serve candy rack stood. She smelled sour gummy worms and lemon balls covered in sugar and the chemical odor of too-strong licorice bits. She smelled chocolate. She concentrated on the display with its green plastic baggies and the little metal scoops she'd like to take home with her, and at all the bins of different sorts of sweets and sours and hots in fantastic colors and fantasy shapes, then looked up at him. "And you?"

He melted, she could see him melting and prickling, losing form, when her eyes looked into his. It's like he'd known it would happen, even dreaded it, but needed it too. Needed to fall a little apart under her gaze. His other senses tumbled away from him in microjewels while his eyes were locked in hers. She felt them tumble toward her, abandoning their host, and soon he'd be nothing but a weak mist. She looked away.
"I've forgotten to get..." she began.
"I'm just buying..." he mumbled at the same time.
"My cat will kill me," she said quickly, "if I forget his food." She swept her eyes past his, locking for a fraction of a moment to reassure him that she'd seen what had happened to him, that she knew he'd crumbled, then looked down the next aisle to where the cat food might be waiting. She saw him needing to gather up, pull together. Reorganize.
"Good to see you, Kitty." He sounded shaken but sure. It was important that she leave him sure and mostly act as if it never happened, the falling apart.
"You too." She smiled and flicked her eyes up to his again.
"Bye, Kitty."

When she smiled it was all right again. Her smile was a guard, a different kind of shining light from the one in her eyes. The boys tried to make her laugh so they could see her, sidle up to her and rub against the bright and shallow glow of her smile. It was the deep of her eyes they were afraid of. Kitty put her hand lightly on his, just above the elbow, just for a pause while she gathered his name. She was always thinking she'd forgotten names, and she'd panic because they always remembered hers. She touched people so they'd stay, so she could connect with them and calm a little, so she could read their names through her fingertips.
"Bye, Stefan." Kitty smiled again and took her hand away. She watched all the bits of him fly back into place as she spoke his name. His pride and self returned to where they were before he saw her standing there by the breakfast boxes, beautiful, forgetful, alone. She paid at the register then stepped back out into the strong fall wind and once again disappeared.