The Sheep Farm

In my parents’ front yard, I scroll toward the conclusion of yet another scientific article. I blankly stare at the letters and resist the urge to open YouTube. This text is also irrelevant to my thesis. My mother says I need to do something else for a while and asks if I can get some groceries for dinner. She is going to make poké bowls.

As I cycle through the woods toward the supermarket, I hear intense shouts. Through the trees I see a group of people in medieval costumes attacking each other with swords and axes. I cycle past the sheep farm and think back to the time my uncle told me that my cousin had planned to go to Georgia for a weekend with his friends, but had to cancel because that weekend was also the open day for Wageningen University. My moment of joy is abruptly interrupted when I have to hit the brakes for an elderly woman with a walker in the middle of the bike path. She doesn’t seem to notice me as I cycle around her in a curve.

In the supermarket, I look at the shopping list I’ve texted myself. As I weigh mangoes, I think back to that time during my exam trip when a friend of mine couldn’t wait to “fix some chicks”, after which he crashed into a door frame, had to go to the hospital with a hole in his head, and spent the rest of the vacation looking like a monk. A man taps me on the shoulder. “The mangoes have a standard price per piece; you don’t have to weigh them.”

At the self-scanning checkout, two boys with sleeveless vests and center partings ask if they can go outside because they don’t want to buy anything. Bags of candy pigs and Haribo Starmix fall out from under the coat of one of them. In a panic, the boy shows his bank account to the confused employee. “I swear I wasn’t going to steal, bro! Check, I got money!”.

On the way back, I pass the old woman again. She got about twenty meters further. This time I greet her, but she does not respond. At the sheep farm, my neighbor passes me on his bike. He is part of Vindicat, but fortunately has no burns on his face. In the forest, one of the knights is led away from the battlefield. He covers his right eye and groans in pain.

At home, I deliver the groceries and plop down on the couch. My brother plays Stranger things have happened by Foo Fighters on the guitar. My mother holds the bag of groceries in front of me.

“I asked for raw salmon and rice vinegar, not smoked salmon and rice oil. Go back.”