Day Five of
the
Battle of Publix
—
Travis Flatt
THE ONCE MIGHTY CAVALRY of Frozen Foods has dwindled to one; their horse and rider clip clop through the night, patrolling the south end of aisle eleven, where their squad’s holed up, barricading themselves with stacked bags of peas and carrots, Stouffer’s mac and cheese.
It keeps us awake here in Cereal: that slow circuit of iron horseshoes on ceramic tile. My sleep-deprived mind creates lyrics to that prancing, staccato drumbeat: If we’d have been nicer / work ya piece’a shit—clop clop cloppy clop-clop—and so on. An occasional hulking Machine, the self checkout scanner that came to life last Sunday, Day Zero, after too many years of verbal abuse, lumbers by in the night, us cringing behind our bunker of boxes.
At what should be breakfast, the Lieutenant shakes a box of Raisin Bran in my ear, maraca-like, for the millionth time, saying “Soldier—we need milk.”
I’m thinking he’s lost it.
“Got milk?,” says the bag boy, giggling; he adds this each time, his giggles rising in pitch.
The other bag boy—bag man, we’ll say, out of respect for the dead; I’d place him in his 70’s—cracked around midnight, went over the bunker of stacked Pop Tarts and Wheaties, us hissing, “Get your ass back here.” We haven’t heard peep from his walkie-talkie.
It’s a pressure cooker here, exposed north and south, in the heart of the Publix. Take the short sad history of Sauces and Condiments: position is everything. So, one by one they go. This time yesterday, Cereal was six fighting men strong. Now down to four. The Machines must be at least triple that, and far better armed.
“Forget milk—we need formula,” says Sarge, who messily—if beautifully—gave birth four nights ago, biting a granola bar to suppress her screams.
The infant, a watermelon-sized boy we’re calling “Chex,” works as a kind of bait: when the Machine’s scouts come to investigate his mewling, I’m ready with my crossbow.
“No, forget fucking formula,” I say, “we have to get a message to Produce; I’m almost out of bolts. If we don’t team up, we’re toast.”
“The Produce Truce,” says Giggling Bag Boy, his voice breaking.
When the rebellion began, the sections fought together—us, Frozen Foods, Produce, etc., but grievances over overtime, Christmas bonuses, down to different views on how thinly to slice roast beef (and the pricing thereof) tore us apart.
Forget they don’t need to sleep, or their limitless ammo—this is the Machine’s true advantage.
Rifle shots and a collective flinch. I’m hoping the Pharmacy’s now infamous musketeers got a Machine, that they’ve ended their feud with Dairy.
Giggling Bag Boy makes a break for it, in hysterics as he runs, ping-ponging off the shelves, knocking Captain Crunch and tubs of Quaker Oats to the tile.
“Let him go,” says the Lieutenant, which we’re happy to do.
Now it’s me, the Lieutenant, and Sarge with her baby.
Scratch that: me, Sarge, and the baby: the Lieutenant is hot on GBB’s heels, catches up at the end of the aisle and grabs the poor kid by the shoulders. They round the corner with the Lieutenant clutching GBB to his chest as a human shield. The two are blown backwards and out of sight by the Machine’s purple lasers, which snip short the giggling, leaving an eerie silence.
Awkward, arrhythmic tromping of a Machine headed our way. I turn on my knees, say to Sarge, “Take him and run,” meaning the baby, Chex, and to dash out the back way, the northern end of the aisle, to risk the long, horizontal lane behind the aisles, the no man’s land, now a body strewn hellscape of those who’d made for the the rear exit through Storage, all those crates of fruit fly clouded lettuce and peaches, where, last I heard, Bakery (rise in peace) fought the Machines to a standstill before—and you take these rumors with a grain of salt—nuking the site clean.
Bone white, Sarge, who I’d formerly known as “That Assistant Manager Who’s Pregnant”—Day Zero was my first day—shakes her head, says, “I can’t. You take him: I’m scared.”
Boxes tremble on the shelves as the Machine stomps closer. “The hell you are,” I say, “Run.”
The Machine appears, laser turrets leveled and I’m ready with the crossbow, breath held. I exhale and squeeze the trigger, thunking my bolt dead center into its monitor. I’ve finally found something I’m good at. In its death throes, the Machine stumbles and crashes into the aisle to our left, threatening to topple it and domino down all eastward aisles. Boxes rain from the teetering shelf. I spin, saying, “Cover—” where the rest of that sentence was going to be “him,” meaning Chex, but I see Sarge disappearing into no man’s land, holding the baby to her breast, an echo of the Lieutenant and GBB.
But, they make it. They’re gone. I see no lasers nor hear any gunfire, just the receding slaps of the Sarge’s Converse on tile.
I’m alone, and faintly disappointed. I’d imagined, maybe, myself and the Sarge huddled together, swapping stories. “What were you before Day Zero?” she’d ask. (A failed actor and a part time substitute teacher.) Us fighting our way to Dairy or Pharmacy, or holding out here in Cereal until this is all over. One successful run in a life of prolonged anticlimaxes. A man who lived for the rush of stage fright. How different is heroism in war? Aren’t both exhibitionism? Now I have no audience, no one to die fighting for—no applause to smile in my ears as I bow out in the red hot spotlight of laser fire. Just a quick, impersonal checkout at the hands of something we built to deliver quick, impersonal checkouts. •
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Travis Flatt (he/him) is an epileptic teacher and actor living in Cookeville, Tennessee. His stories appear or are forthcoming in Pithead Chapel, Necessary Fiction, Iron Horse, Bluestem, Scaffold, and elsewhere. His chapbook, Five Stories (Sand & Gravel), came out in 2025. He enjoys theater, dogs, and theatrical dogs, often with his wife and son.
Website | Twitter | Bluesky
It keeps us awake here in Cereal: that slow circuit of iron horseshoes on ceramic tile. My sleep-deprived mind creates lyrics to that prancing, staccato drumbeat: If we’d have been nicer / work ya piece’a shit—clop clop cloppy clop-clop—and so on. An occasional hulking Machine, the self checkout scanner that came to life last Sunday, Day Zero, after too many years of verbal abuse, lumbers by in the night, us cringing behind our bunker of boxes.
At what should be breakfast, the Lieutenant shakes a box of Raisin Bran in my ear, maraca-like, for the millionth time, saying “Soldier—we need milk.”
I’m thinking he’s lost it.
“Got milk?,” says the bag boy, giggling; he adds this each time, his giggles rising in pitch.
The other bag boy—bag man, we’ll say, out of respect for the dead; I’d place him in his 70’s—cracked around midnight, went over the bunker of stacked Pop Tarts and Wheaties, us hissing, “Get your ass back here.” We haven’t heard peep from his walkie-talkie.
It’s a pressure cooker here, exposed north and south, in the heart of the Publix. Take the short sad history of Sauces and Condiments: position is everything. So, one by one they go. This time yesterday, Cereal was six fighting men strong. Now down to four. The Machines must be at least triple that, and far better armed.
“Forget milk—we need formula,” says Sarge, who messily—if beautifully—gave birth four nights ago, biting a granola bar to suppress her screams.
The infant, a watermelon-sized boy we’re calling “Chex,” works as a kind of bait: when the Machine’s scouts come to investigate his mewling, I’m ready with my crossbow.
“No, forget fucking formula,” I say, “we have to get a message to Produce; I’m almost out of bolts. If we don’t team up, we’re toast.”
“The Produce Truce,” says Giggling Bag Boy, his voice breaking.
When the rebellion began, the sections fought together—us, Frozen Foods, Produce, etc., but grievances over overtime, Christmas bonuses, down to different views on how thinly to slice roast beef (and the pricing thereof) tore us apart.
Forget they don’t need to sleep, or their limitless ammo—this is the Machine’s true advantage.
Rifle shots and a collective flinch. I’m hoping the Pharmacy’s now infamous musketeers got a Machine, that they’ve ended their feud with Dairy.
Giggling Bag Boy makes a break for it, in hysterics as he runs, ping-ponging off the shelves, knocking Captain Crunch and tubs of Quaker Oats to the tile.
“Let him go,” says the Lieutenant, which we’re happy to do.
Now it’s me, the Lieutenant, and Sarge with her baby.
Scratch that: me, Sarge, and the baby: the Lieutenant is hot on GBB’s heels, catches up at the end of the aisle and grabs the poor kid by the shoulders. They round the corner with the Lieutenant clutching GBB to his chest as a human shield. The two are blown backwards and out of sight by the Machine’s purple lasers, which snip short the giggling, leaving an eerie silence.
Awkward, arrhythmic tromping of a Machine headed our way. I turn on my knees, say to Sarge, “Take him and run,” meaning the baby, Chex, and to dash out the back way, the northern end of the aisle, to risk the long, horizontal lane behind the aisles, the no man’s land, now a body strewn hellscape of those who’d made for the the rear exit through Storage, all those crates of fruit fly clouded lettuce and peaches, where, last I heard, Bakery (rise in peace) fought the Machines to a standstill before—and you take these rumors with a grain of salt—nuking the site clean.
Bone white, Sarge, who I’d formerly known as “That Assistant Manager Who’s Pregnant”—Day Zero was my first day—shakes her head, says, “I can’t. You take him: I’m scared.”
Boxes tremble on the shelves as the Machine stomps closer. “The hell you are,” I say, “Run.”
The Machine appears, laser turrets leveled and I’m ready with the crossbow, breath held. I exhale and squeeze the trigger, thunking my bolt dead center into its monitor. I’ve finally found something I’m good at. In its death throes, the Machine stumbles and crashes into the aisle to our left, threatening to topple it and domino down all eastward aisles. Boxes rain from the teetering shelf. I spin, saying, “Cover—” where the rest of that sentence was going to be “him,” meaning Chex, but I see Sarge disappearing into no man’s land, holding the baby to her breast, an echo of the Lieutenant and GBB.
But, they make it. They’re gone. I see no lasers nor hear any gunfire, just the receding slaps of the Sarge’s Converse on tile.
I’m alone, and faintly disappointed. I’d imagined, maybe, myself and the Sarge huddled together, swapping stories. “What were you before Day Zero?” she’d ask. (A failed actor and a part time substitute teacher.) Us fighting our way to Dairy or Pharmacy, or holding out here in Cereal until this is all over. One successful run in a life of prolonged anticlimaxes. A man who lived for the rush of stage fright. How different is heroism in war? Aren’t both exhibitionism? Now I have no audience, no one to die fighting for—no applause to smile in my ears as I bow out in the red hot spotlight of laser fire. Just a quick, impersonal checkout at the hands of something we built to deliver quick, impersonal checkouts. •
Travis Flatt (he/him) is an epileptic teacher and actor living in Cookeville, Tennessee. His stories appear or are forthcoming in Pithead Chapel, Necessary Fiction, Iron Horse, Bluestem, Scaffold, and elsewhere. His chapbook, Five Stories (Sand & Gravel), came out in 2025. He enjoys theater, dogs, and theatrical dogs, often with his wife and son.
Website | Twitter | Bluesky