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DiloA
confidence artist knows more than they’ll ever tell you. They know how to get what they want when they want it, and they make it look near easy. They’re charming. Ten steps ahead, even if you feel like you’re the one leading. You’ll never know how many truths and how many lies made up their story.
If we reached for the stars and happened to tumblethank God there was no lava on the moon.People need something to believe in. Something to hang on to. Something they can call their own. I could tell you about the shrapnel in my mother’s chest. I could tell you how the sound of thunder sometimes made me piss myself. Maybe you’d shed a little tear for me. But I was no sob story. We all had our own little sadness. Whatever.
——————
october 4, 2000
We were at Z-Mart. A big box chain a twenty-three-minute walk or a ten-minute bus ride away from our house. A national treasure proud of its customer service where the customer was always right even though they had been ripped off a thousand times before reaching the checkout. At store 416 in the Malvern Mall in Scarborough, we were the Nobodies. Hoodlums, alcoholics, white trash, or terrorists—majority immigrant—all of us deemed degenerate. The only service we were offered was plastic cups with morsels they had circulating called
free samples. The entire store for the month was orange and black, made Halloween spooky.
Anji wore a tight pale yellow shirt with no bra on. You could practically make out the shape and size of her areolae. She knew there were monsters out there, but she was willing to take her chances; after all, she could fire a Kalashnikov and had impeccable aim. She could kill with her bare hands.
Mary wore a bobbled and worn navy jogging set. Her curly hair was brushed to a Sai Baba ’fro. Fifty brush strokes on either side. Mary, so full of grace, born Naagadevi Number One, was a cobra. Yes, that’s what I said, the woman who birthed me was also a snake.
Naja naja, of the family Elapidae. Venomous and capable of preying on their own. Immigrant mom, she was only threatening if you asked her about her stance on homosexuality and public displays of affection. She’d pray for acid rain on the Pride parade but make you a sandwich if you were hungry. Mary held Maysha close to her chest.
Maysha was three foot and three years young. She was cute. Real cute, and cute was the biggest distraction. People had less sympathy for ugly. If you were cute and struggling, for sure the world hated you. A demon child lived in Maysha’s belly and made her scream at the top of her lungs. That demon was a pain in my ass.
In the foyer opposite the buggies at the Z-Mart entrance, a little girl in pigtails and an overall dress, with freckles that spotted the top half of her face, stood beside an elderly man wearing an old brown suit, with a red poppy pinned on his chest.
“Spare any change for War Amps?” asked the girl.
“Change for the armed forces?” begged the man.
Terrance was on the other side, standing about six foot. He worked every day except Sundays and had a big belly that was more hard than soft, full of roti and goat curry. His white security shirt was this close to popping if only Terrance sneezed and squeezed his butt. He let out a burp instead. Despite his after-meal lethargy, he mustered every ounce of energy to raise his head ever so slightly, eyeing Anji’s tits jiggling with the vibration of the cart.
RattleClankClank“Sign up and get ten percent off your next purchase. A complimentary bag of easing-into-heart-disease included.”
“Want a credit card? Who wants a credit card?” The echo of workers selling laminated crack.
If the fact you couldn’t afford much made you queasy, there were antacids conveniently located at the end of every aisle. That and all the gum in the world. You could blow bubbles so big you could live in them.
PopPopPopA problem I had was that I couldn’t unsee phony. I was sensitive to fake. I had the makings of the world’s best bullshit detector. I suffered from acid reflux as a result. Two doctors and a specialist confirmed that I had the amount of acid expected for a forty-five-year-old alcoholic. I was meant to be dead a long time ago. A bunch of us were. We ran straight from bombs to carcinogens and consumerism.
The only creatures who knew peace in this hellhole were the HD fish swimming across flat-screens. Invest in a forty-two-inch and get a pair of subwoofers for 25 percent off. Use your store credit card and receive a free lava lamp and blue headlights. Buy in the next few seconds and a troll will suck your genitals for free.
To the right of Health and Beauty was the first security camera. Loitering in Jewelry was our ticket out of the store scot-free. A woman with rollers in her hair. Her chin was an inch from the glass, her breath fogging her view. She eyed necklaces and brooches. Jewelry designed for women over the hill and rolling. Her purse wide open on the counter.
“Oh my God, it’s Sheila,” said Mary.
“Who the hell is Sheila?” I asked.
“She owns a penthouse in the condo I work at. What a stylish woman. Look at her. What a beautiful blouse.”
Mary swept her shoulder-length bush behind her ears, fondly admiring Sheila from afar.
“What’s she doing at this Z-Mart?”
“Our Z-Mart has the best deals of all the Z-Marts. Didn’t you know?”
I threw a pack of fruit snacks into the cart. Mary threw in pads, which I’d later stuff in my backpack. I grabbed a bottle of baby shampoo and a bar of soap. Appear as inconspicuous as a citizen who can afford their basic needs and wishes.
We dispersed to complete our individual assignments. Maysha was stuck with me and out of control. She stood between men’s sweaters hanging from a rack, staring off into the distance. A sudden twinkle in her eye, and she was overcome with a burst of energy, or as Mary would say, that child was possessed by the devil. She sped from Men’s Wear to Women’s, picking up her pace to a toddler sprint. Cute was as useful as it was annoying. I ran straight for her, passing Mary stuffing bread rolls into her pockets in aisle seven.
“Maysha!” I shouted, weaving through the evening crowd. I spotted Anji in aisle nine.
“I don’t think you understand. What I need is to be relieved of all that I feel inside,” she said to a store clerk.
A juicy whitehead pulsated on the teenager’s nose. He had a tub of Metamucil in his hands.
I was on the move, but it was in my best interest to speed-walk casually. Teenagers wearing hoodies couldn’t simply run free. Not with unpaid crap in their bag. I turned a corner toward Electronics.
In front of a whole shelf of screens, there was Maysha standing still, watching an old man in a wheelchair in front of an HD thirty-six-inch plasma TV. In an unnamed drought-ridden land, far away from the cold of this place, crisp on the display, was an African boy with kwashiorkor. He stared directly into the lens. His eyes were round, brown, and captivating. His skin was ashy and gray. Flies hovered around his sores. He scratched his bloated belly. The camera zoomed, narrowing in on his face. A cloud of dust hazed the image.
The old man cried in his wheelchair and Maysha couldn’t take her eyes off the man.
“Sir, hang on. Sir?” called a young woman in a bright red Z-Mart shirt. “Just wait right there a second. Sir? Don’t go running from me, now. Did you want to try a free sample of the new scented tissues we just got in stock?” She pointed to a display beside the screen.
Copyright © 2026 by Priya Guns. All rights reserved. No part of this excerpt may be reproduced or reprinted without permission in writing from the publisher.
