The Core: The First Guest

1. The stranger at the grocery store

Gluttony ate it all.

There was so much death, smoke, and destruction. The loss of billions of lives and all because of this blurry 1980's photograph.

I blinked as I looked down at the picture, clearing out unshed tears and finally clearly seeing the woman in the blue dress again...

Let me rewind time and tell you how I got here:

It was in the 1980s when I saw something that broke the understanding of my world to its foundations. I was in an Albertson's grocery store shopping with my mom on one certain day. She had a laundry list of things to buy and she was wandering up and down the aisles while I was free to browse.

Recently, I had gotten into the habit of collecting gadgets and knives that caught my fancy. Case in point, in my pocket I had a yellow micro 110 camera on a keychain. I used it to snap pictures of anything and everything that caught my interest. Currently, the newest gadget that I was inspecting was a yellow watch with digital hands.

I slid the plastic package off of the railing to get a closer look when my eyes were drawn towards a movement to my left. A lady had walked up to the checkout counter to pay for her things.

She was pretty, at least in her twenties, and she stood with an air of calm that I hadn't seen in many people. When she moved, she seemed to glide, and even her gaze was something else. It was as if she was a thousand miles away and yet she noticed everything. Her eyes studied and scanned everything for just moments. I felt like she was absorbing her surroundings and noticing every little detail.

Let me try to explain why this woman stood out from the other people in the store. Most people live as though they are controlled by what happens to them.

Mothers always seemed to be in a rush. They would arrive overburdened and then stand in a daze while the checker went to work.

Businessmen would clomp up to the counter and immediately act impatient. They would stare at the clerk like it was their fault for making them wait a few seconds. Every customer seemed to follow their own script. It was all a part of what I had seen often in my young life.

This woman was different somehow. She didn't fidget or bother with her hair. She seemed to even already have the amount needed before they added the final tally up... down to the cent. Her blue dress was simple, yet elegant, and extended past her knees. I had expected to find her wearing heels but instead, her shoes were comfortable-looking flats.

I honestly don't know what made her stand out so much to me. The more I looked at her the more puzzled I became. What made her different was how she acted, how she stood, and how she observed the world around her. All of these things combined set her apart in my mind.

Her clothes were ordinary... and oddly, without a wrinkle or stain of any kind. Try as I might, I couldn't begin to guess where she was from. The detached look in her eyes made me suspect that she may have been a lot older than a girl in her twenties.

I took out my little camera and checked to make sure I wound it to the next film slot. While my head was down, I could still make out the lady's shoes and the edge of her blue dress in the corner of my vision. Her next words stuck in my mind from that moment until this day. It sounded like she spoke something in a lower tone... or as if someone else had spoken in a lower tone next to her. The voice said "Disha tah." I heard the checkout clerk ask "Excuse me, what did you say?" and the woman replied with "Oh nothing, it is just my time to go." She replied with a silky voice.

I raised my camera to my eye and framed her center in the shot as she was stepping away from the counter with her sack of items. Her head rotated smoothly like an automatic turret until her gaze met mine. She looked into my eyes, startling me as I pressed the button of the tiny camera.