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I lined up the colorful skulls on the retail shelf. Just another holiday to full up the store space. Rainbows, flags, hearts, trees, pumpkins, calendars. An ill-advised plague push as though COVID was a joyous celebration. Blue and yellow support the Ukraine for a brief moment. Then back to the normal pipeline of product. Changing in endless rotation. Up too soon, scavenged in a last-minute scramble, lingering in the clearance section.
Skulls, Mexican flags, little sombreros. The liver spots on my hands tell me I’ve been doing this endless, senseless, useless task far too long. I got my children out the door. Do I really need to eat this badly?
The skulls grin at me.
(words 115; first published July 3, 2022 – from a picture prompt for a Facebook writing group. Aim is about 50 words)