How old is this pizza?

Yeah, I shop at Walmart.
It’s a one-stop shop.

Where else can you get
your favorite pizza

& the best cookie you ever
tasted & your daily dose

of prescribed conformity?
Remind you of grade school

too? I used to eat only the top
like a picky coon.

It’s all trash forwards
& backwards anyway.

***

My partner and I accidentally traveled to the future and landed in this conformist society, specifically in a Walmart. Everyone around us was wearing the same gray outfit, long sleeves, pants, and boots. We, on the other hand, were wearing t-shirts, shorts, and flip flops. As if that wasn’t enough to make me super anxious, we also got separated.

I searched for him, which should’ve been easy given that we stuck out in the crowd, but I couldn’t find him. But soon, I discovered the long queue for cafeteria food in the center of the store and I hurried to the back of the line, sure that he would find me one way or another there.

I waited patiently, not saying a word and not moving unless I had to— I waited a long time too. The servers had to run and get more of this gross rectangular pizza and tiny chocolate chip cookies from another department constantly. Often, they only returned with one small pallet. When I got closer to the front, they told me to wait and let a couple of people jump ahead of me while they warmed more pizza.

During all of this, I heard my partner get into a disagreement not far away, yelling at a guard or something about how ridiculous this was. They escorted him away, but I was too afraid to chase after him. I was the only person of color that I could see and the way the servers had just treated me had me feeling extremely unsafe. 

I finally got my food, ate it right there as I moseyed out of the line. Then I left the building and hid, trying to see if I could use find my phone to find him but it locked me out. It said my password had expired a hundred years ago and it chose a new one for me but didn’t tell me what it was.