FANZINE

Sarah
age 20
part time
hobbies: meditation, Call of Duty, Pokemon, her Husky

There are cameras here and a single dude sound crew and while taking off my jacket, I realize I completely spaced out: Extreme fucking Couponing is here today. I think, I would have washed my face if I had known. I would have worn my favorite Eevee T shirt underneath my cruddy uniform. Rushing out the house, I never eat breakfast. I speed and drive with the windows down playing the radio loud, and I listen to my mom’s voice in my head saying that I can’t do better than right now, just a fucking cashier. I mark another X on the calendar until I don’t have to live here with her anymore.

I welcome my haters and my family members like I welcome brainless zombies in Call of Duty, which I own all day, where I own all day. I can get lost in a console, in a perfect mindless video game. My mother doesn’t know I am a top ranked player in the world, and I love my secret. My skills: they follow me like desire. My skills: they’re a shield to her bullshit, a canopy for my peace of mind, transcendental invisible middle fingers.

When I am wearing my purple headphones in front of my PS3, I am only getting better. Sarah rising.

I scan a dozen coupons. I scan a dozen coupons. I have been standing here for over four hours, and I am positive this is illegal, my standing here for this long. The machine breaks and I have to call the manager. I scan a dozen coupons. I want more zombies to mow down and it’s all I think about.

 

Eve
age 37
full time
hobbies: Angry Birds, watching CNN, movies on the weekends, her two sons and her two daughters

I download Tinder for the first time and it takes me a while to understand, but now I understand. It’s the wrong day to start, the Extreme Couponing people are here, but I think I felt something new this morning. I have an impulse to do something new, but not crazy, but perhaps new and crazy. I stay in the staff lounge for as long as can, swiping left and swiping right. No one is matching with me.

I download more apps, buttoning my collar, before I have to rush out to the registers. I see ten lined up shopping carts and the cameras following the Extreme Couponing person.

It’s been three years since Marlon’s accident, and my kids don’t call. I love those little assholes, but they don’t call me. The boredom at home sometimes is amazing. I watch my curtains in the breeze and lose myself.

I stand here for five hours, and the Extreme Couponing person, a woman my age, is giving me a look.

I scan so many coupons. The cameras have begun to draw a small crowd, and the Extreme Couponing person is still giving me a look, as though I am not scanning quickly enough. Her look takes me aback, and the back of my knees are weak for standing so long.

Through telepathy, I tell her, I don’t want to be here either, in this place, these lights. We are the same.

I can see in her face that she doesn’t hear me.

I scan so many coupons. It takes another hour before the final total happens, and the Extreme Couponing person celebrates, the small crowd cheers. She pays the store nothing.

I think about my cell phone in my pocket, and I wish I could escape to see if any faces on my phone wants to fuck me. I have an impulse tomorrow will not be like today, like love exists.

 

Camille
age 26
seasonal
hobbies: Twitter, running, hiking, exploring new places

After breaking up with Anders, I think I shut myself out from the real world for something like two months. I remember whole days without speaking, whole days where I only walked to and from the refrigerator, grabbing whatever I could microwave so I could eat there standing in place. I ran out of food but it didn’t stop me, I still would not leave my apartment for anything. I remember drinking beers in the hot shower where I felt a little better with heat on both sides of the skin.

I hate Anders, I do. I use the word freely.

I pick up an old habit again and decide to buy a pack a cigarettes. It’s been three years since I bought a pack: the length of time with Anders. I even get nervous and it takes me too long to decide on what brand. I point and the cashier slides it to me and I hope he has a wonderful day.

I smoke outside work and see the Extreme Couponing van in the parking lot, taking up two spaces.

The cigarettes take me to a cloud, and I smoke two. I leave half of one on the edge of a trash can for someone desperate.

I clock in and crack my neck, feeling lightheaded from the nicotine. I see twenty carts lined up and the Extreme Couponing person, after smiling at me, refuses to look me in the eye for the rest of the twelve transactions.

When this happens, I feel as though a great divide or rip just happened in the earth and I never jumped over to the safer side. I scan coupon after coupon and look at her packed carts full of Cherry Soda. There are over two hundred 2 liter bottles of them, and they look surreal all together like that. I swear my arms are sore. The beeping sounds from the register accumulate in my brain.

I ask the Extreme Couponing person, Cherry soda?

The Extreme Couponing person says, Cherry soda, still not looking me in the eye.

I feel a great weight falling from me, and it’s as though rocks falling from a cliff. I scan coupon after coupon, coming on three hours, and I decide I am going to throw these cigarettes in my pocket all in the trash after having just one more after all of this. I just want one more after all of this.

Again, I say, Cherry soda, just to provoke them. I scan coupon after coupon. My eyes are stunning and beautiful and I need no one.

 

Kilroy
age 1666
full time
hobbies: CrossFit

My name is Kilroy and I need to kill kill kill. Kill kill kill. Kill kill kill. Kill kill kill. Kill kill kill. Kill kill kill. Kill kill kill. Kill kill kill. Kill kill kill. Kill kill kill. Kill kill kill. Kill kill kill. Kill kill kill. Kill kill kill. Kill kill kill. Kill kill kill. Kill kill kill. Kill kill kill. Kill kill kill. My name is Kilroy and I need to kill kill kill. Kill kill kill. Kill kill kill. Kill kill kill. Kill kill kill. Kill kill kill. Kill kill kill.Kill kill kill. Kill kill kill. Paycheck. Kill kill kill. Kill kill kill. Kill kill kill. Kill kill kill. Kill kill kill. Kill kill kill. Kill kill kill. Kill kill kill. Kill kill kill. Kill kill kill. Kill kill kill. Kill kill kill. Kill kill kill. Kill kill kill. Kill kill kill. Kill kill kill. Kill kill kill. Kill kill kill. My name is Kilroy and I need to kill kill kill. Kill kill kill. Kill kill kill. Kill kill kill. Kill kill kill. Kill kill kill. Kill kill kill. Need to get them Jordans. Kill kill kill. Kill kill kill. Kill kill kill. Student loans. Kill kill kill. Kill kill kill. Kill kill kill. Kill kill kill. Kill kill kill. Kill kill kill. Kill kill kill. Kill kill kill. Kill kill kill. Kill kill kill. Those Adidas. Kill kill kill. Kill kill kill. Kill kill kill. Kill kill kill. Kill kill kill. Kill kill kill. Stupid coupon. Kill kill kill. Kill kill kill. Kill kill kill. Kill kill kill. Kill kill kill. Kill kill kill. Kill kill kill. Kill kill kill. Kill kill kill. Kill kill kill. Kill kill kill. Kill kill kill. Kill kill kill. Kill kill kill. Kill kill kill. Kill kill kill. Kill kill kill. Kill kill kill. Kill kill kill. Kill kill kill. I wish so badly for someone who understands. Kill kill kill. Kill kill kill.

 

Fanny
age 52
manager
hobbies: poetry, reading

In my life, I think of how many people have died, all the poor souls that have died. I think, since my first breath entering this world, for the span of fifty two years, how many people have left this world since I have come past? I think of how. I think of the dead. I think of balloons rising to the atmosphere, exploding at a certain height in the black, and sunflowers in a field, crushed by harsh wind. I think about all of them standing in a field looking at me, waving at me, while I drive my Toyota Corolla to meaningless places in the city. I know too many timelapses of this city, of decades of buildings and morphing street corners, how my neighborhoods have changed and changed.

I listen to cars pass on a bridge like someone listening to waves in the ocean. I know a single moment can cause a chain reaction and make you homeless and depressed on the streets. I know a thousand moments, like the ones that I’ve had and still feel today, that would never make you feel rich or satisfied. I wonder if I have ever known what it is like to feel satisfied. At the height of my powers, I can only wish I was a good person but know I was never that. I can only wish that I can walk into a room and feel confident again.

I come into work today and work for seven hours for twenty transactions. Extreme Couponing is here but I can fade them out with occasional smiles, to myself, to my hands scanning the canned soups, to no one in particular but the bright air. There is something in my bones that makes me last forever. I say, Your total today is thirty three cents. A savings of ninety-nine percent.

For years, I have lived without love, or with a strange love, a love from afar. For years, she has come into my store, buying avocadoes on Sundays. For years, she has come by except for the past two years, and I feel as though I have lost myself. I can fall peacefully to habit, to the routine of good nature. But I can never stop listening to the cars passing on the bridge.

When she smiles, it’s almost like speaking.