Bacon. Eggs. A bunch of bananas. Three items procured in a three-minute trip around the grocery store. Three minutes including browsing, mind you, not just running in and grabbing the items needed.

Why, then, was he five minutes into a checkout line with no end in sight? The blinking yellow sign atop the pole with the scarlet "3" said "Twelve items or less". Granted, the signs did not say "speedy checkout" but wasn't that inferred from the number of items and the word "Express"? Wouldn't it be perfectly logical to conclude that, with fewer items, it would take less time?

The woman ahead of him in line, a soccer-mom type with dirty-blonde hair and the faint, pleasant odor of expensive perfume, checked her watch irritably. The line wasn't long. There was only one person in front of Soccer-Mom, but he couldn't see that far, his view obstructed by the not so unattractive way Soccer-Mom filled out the emerald green dress she was wearing.

He leaned out to get a look at the cashier and the other customer, hoping to see what the holdup was. When he leaned out, Soccer-Mom shifted her weight to her right foot, moving just enough to still block his view. When he leaned back to get a peek on the inside, she shifted back. He wondered if maybe she were some malicious psychic, taunting him, or if fate was playing its age-old frustration game. He had begun to sweat.

He looked down at the bunch of bananas, trying to relax. There were six of them, neatly joined at the stem, all slightly green around the edges. He always got bananas a little on the green side, so they had a full measure of storage time before they went brown. He had never eaten a brown banana, he realized, but he thought he might wait long enough in this damned checkout line for them to turn.

The thought brought his irritation to anger, and he looked around the front of the store to see the other lines, hoping to find one open, or at least shorter. They were all moving (or failing to move), at the same pace. His heart clenched when he saw that all of the yellow signs with the scarlet letters were lit up, and they were all blinking.

Every cashier in the store was asking for help, their signs sending a strange version of Morse code to the supervisor in an asynchronous rhythm, like blinkers in heavy traffic.

[blink] "I need help over here"

[blinkblink] "Us too!"

[blink][blinkblink][blink]

He felt it starting in his stomach, a tightness that said his lunch might be doing an encore performance in the very near future. The feeling worked its way from his stomach up into his chest, clenching and unclenching in time with the blink of the register lights.

He took a deep breath, just like Dr. Sparks had told him to in times like this. In. out. In. out. "No problem", he thought, "this isn't so bad. Just waiting in line, nothing to worry about" He repeated that to himself a couple of times, remembering to breath deeply as he did.

When he felt calm enough, he checked his watch. His calm shattered instantly, and the unpleasant clenching that had previously ebbed its way slowly up into his chest came back in a sudden torrent, like a vice grip around his middle.

Thirty-five minutes! What kind of ineptitude did it take for a grocery store to go thirty-five minutes without processing a single customer?! He realized his hands were shaking and tried to steady himself. He couldn't draw enough breath for Dr. Sparks' little Lamaze crap, and the anger had blossomed now into a bubbling rage that threatened to spill over any moment.

Soccer-Mom was looking around, now. Her crystalline-blue eyes scanned for any sign of relief from the interminable wait. People had left abandoned carts, bloated with produce and frozen foods, and others had moved them and taken their place in line. When someone realized the wait, they left, and someone else who didn't realize the wait stepped right in behind them, slick as you please.

She scanned past him and returned, looking into his eyes. Concern filled her face, her mouth creasing into a pretty little frown.

"Hey, are you ok?" She asked, smiling a little.

Startled, he took a step back, bumping into the man who had fallen in line behind him. The dozen brown eggs (brown eggs are local eggs, and local eggs are fresh) slipped and fell. HE cried out and tried to catch them, and the fell to the floor with a wet crunch. He stood hunched, watching the first trickle of yolk ooze from the corner of the carton.

The eggs. He needed the eggs. He couldn't have bacon without eggs. His eggs were broken, defective, un-usable. He would have to get out of line to get more.

And lose his place in line! He would be at the end of the line again, one that had grown by a damn sight in the last half-hour or so. No doubt the rest of the bastards in line would be glad to see him go, too.

He let out a feral snarl as he shoved Soccer-Mom, sending her backward onto the cold tile floor.

"You bitch!" he screamed. "You broke my eggs! You broke my. My eggs!"

Soccer-Mom looked up at him, baffled. He kicked her, and blood and spittle flew up in a high arc over her head.

The man behind him in line grabbed him, tried to hold him. HE drove an elbow into the man's face forcing him to let go so he could tend to his broken nose streaming blood all over the floor.

He leaped at Soccer-Mom, hitting her across the face as he mounted her, pinning her shoulders. She held up her hands to ward him off, and he punched through them, again and again.

"My eggs, you bitch!"

"My eggs!"

"I want my eggs!"

He raised his hand to punch her again, and felt an irresistible pressure and searing pain as a bullet tore into his chest. He brought his hand down with less force this time, landing another glancing blow on the bloody mess that was Soccer-Mom's pretty face.

He raised his arm again, ignoring the pain that threatened to knock him out, and another bullet hit him just below the ribs on his left side, crushing and tearing his insides.

He was sprawled on the tiles, face up. The sensation of cold against the back of his neck felt like the cold feelers of death, reaching out in search of one more soul. He looked up at the fluorescent lights, pain and rage swirling through him.

As the lights grew dimmer, the rage faded, and he felt only sadness and pain. He could feel the beating of his heart, ebbing slowly away.

"My eggs", he said to the air. "My eggs"