You walk into the store with a cold grace. You try shirking off your stiff shoulders to blend in with the crowd. You take a long detour from aisle to aisle to not raise suspicion. You then reach your destination. Step by step you walk closer; you recognize the burning pull from it. You slow down and act distracted with another object but all your senses target your goal. You may think if someone was indeed watching, by now you’d be behind bars or worse your guardians would be alerted. So you walk closer, slower, almost inches from it. You fight the urge to coax it. Your hand picks up the object that is kept on the shelf above and walk past your deemed object. You think this would be for distracting the watchers. You scratch your sideburn examining the price tag of the distracting object and walk slower maintaining a comfortable distance from your goal. Your head is bent; eyes hooded but darting, noting the positions of the fellow beings in your presence. You feel a tinge of relief and rising beats of your heart when you see no one but there’s always someone. You lift your head fractionally still with the distracted object in hand to confirm other beings presence far from yours. You stealthily trace your steps back but halt listening to your heart pumping in your ears as you heard a feet sweeping across the floor over the neighbouring aisle two seconds back. You skim through the nearest shelf under the pretense of slow contemplation but your ears are searching, praying for the being to walk away. With an unsuspected trace, the being strides away chattering louder than usual, calming your heart in the next minute seconds. You gait towards your goal, hoping to be invisible. You raise your toes to keep back the object used for distraction but now comes the awaited time. Your firm right hand grabs the desired goal with finesse and shoves it in your pocket while your toes and left arm are still raised. You slide aside picking another object to finish the deed you are concentrating on which is your firm hand. Your firm hand with sturdy nails is scratching, demanding with feverous attempts to destroy the traces of the bar code on the tag. Fortunate for you the small tag contained just the code. You then stealthily peep into your pocket, checking the evidence for your satisfaction of the damaged deed. You pull out your firm hand and use it to keep back the secondary object because you’re just happy with stealing one; although you’re not done yet. You need to escape, step out into the oblivion. You walk with an easy grace all to cover the taut tension you feel along your spine. You gait casually across the billing counter not halting when you greet ‘good day’ to the man behind it. Grateful to the divine that the man behind has a busy day and that you are to treasure your desire that is in your pocket. You walk past the counter utilizing this opportunity to get closer to the exit banner. You step closer and faster in the lazy time towards the door; chills rising at the nape of your neck. Tick, tick, tick, dum..duda…dum halfway through the threshold where you can taste the parking lot air that is as close to freedom. You hear someone call out in the background but you don’t care as you have already stepped out embracing the warmth of the free air.
Summary of the brief in few lines:
Ticks of time and ticks of heartbeats;
Tick, tick, tick… stooped shoulders,
hooded eyes that dart now and then,
Your desire calling you
But you hang up,
controlling your limbs from leaping.
Dum..dum..duda..dum
Your desire in your pocket within minutes from sharing bliss.
Scrambling, scratching, and destroying the evidence.
Tick, dum..dud..dum
Walking across the billing counter
With a chilling cloak engulfing you
You put your best to smile at the man behind the desk.
Tick, tick, tick, step by step, inch by foot
You walk closer towards our freedom
Neglecting the world behind you.
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