You go food shopping

You arrive at your local convenience store amid the usual midday Saturday rush. Local families rangle troops of small screaming children to sit down inside shopping carts; haggard looking local old folks carry baskets bearing flour, eggs, and bread; and college students gather in gaggles shopping together; other groups stand waiting close-but-not-to-close to the exit while one of their number buys **** lest they all get carded or turned down by the cashier.

You do your best to maneuver through the surging throngs of humanity that rush this way and that way, different scents **** your mind once more. A middle aged woman walks by you and you sense gray, smelling something medicinal once again. An elderly couple walks past, and you’re surprised to sense, well, nothing, and despite sniffing the air like a weirdo all you smell is that old person smell that you sort of expected.

As you are perusing the bread aisle, a small gaggle of half a dozen college students, all girls, escorting a half full shopping cart approach headed the other direction. They are wearing matching tucked in white shirts with the greek “ΦΡΧ” printed across the front which either incidentally or very intentionally accentuating their busts and chatting among themselves.

As they pass you are hit with a wall of sensations all at once, and find yourself stumbling a step, blinking hard as more colors and smells pours into your mind as you try and make sense of them all in their variation; the smell of several strong if cheap perfumes mixing with each other in your nose; a combination color of red and gray; a soft white; a dark gray; a bright, hot pink that makes your heart race; a light gray; and light pink; alluring fruity scents, an iron scent, and more smells of different strength disinfectant.

You turn to look back just as the gaggle turns a corner and is gone. You breathe hard. You can feel your heart race, suddenly excited by the furtive experience of knowing so much about the bodies of complete strangers as you shovel one and then another loaf of bread in your basket, enough to hopefully last your new appetite through the coming week.

You mosey through each of the aisles of the store as nonchalantly as you can, tensing as these still very alien sensations wash over you as you walk by different women. As you continue shopping, you can't help but notice the curious looks that some of the women are giving you as you pass them by. You have to wonder if they can sense that something is up or if they're simply reacting to your newfound confidence.

You approach the cashier, taking a moment to absentmindedly try to focus on controlling your third eye’s sight while waiting in line for check out. You try putting your groceries onto the conveyor belt without looking, and are surprised at how well you can “see” where you’re setting down your groceries on the conveyor while watching your hands pick them up out of the basket.

“Huh,” you chuckle, dropping your now empty basket into the basket rack without even looking with your normal eyes, all the while still processing the flood of sensory data that has started to become your new normal.

The cashier is a young woman. She has her light brown hair done up in twin braids hanging down that form a frame around her round face and down over her work apron. She gives you a courtesy smile at you as she scans your items. You’ve seen her working here a few times before, you think as you smile back at her, feeling a little self-conscious as you smell a mix of vanilla and something floral, with just a hint of perspiration coming from her; your “sight” can see a pink so light it’s almost white.

“That’ll be fifty five dollars and sixty-seven cents,” she says. You tense, despite knowing that your food budget would certainly grow to match your growing appetite.

“Oh yeah,” you reply, fumble with your billfold, and pass her three twenties in cash.

“Four thirty-three is your change,” she says automatically, eyes not leaving the display of the cash register, her fingers touching your palms for half a second as she hands you your change.

The hair on the back of your neck goes up as even more alien sensations flash suddenly across those fingers to you. That she is seventy five almost seventy six seasons old, only a few days away from her nineteenth birthday it would seem. That she’s not very happy, stressed and anxious, which are negatively associated with fertility, the alien voice in your mind comments sagely. That is not good. After all she is of fertile stock. You can see that through your third eye, the whiteness; the luteal stage, her body’s cycle nearly complete and almost ready to begin anew once more, ready to make sparks, extra estrogen flowing through her blood even now. She will be ready soon. She expects three. She wants three. Three because that is how many her parents had, between her and her siblings. Three because that is how many she thinks is the correct number. At least three because that is what her family expects. Good. Hers is a pious family who expect her to fulfill her duty to make babies and raise a family, though they are faithful to the wrong gods.

And like that the feeling is gone, leaving you wide eyed staring at the change in your hand as the cashier starts to bag your groceries for you with the reusable bags that you brought from home. You take a long moment, collecting yourself, steadying your suddenly shaky breathing.

“Thanks,” you say as the cashier passes you your grocery bags, “and ah,” you shoulder your grocery bags, “if I don’t see you again, happy birthday?”

She looks at you with wide, confused eyes.

“Thanks,” she says, gobsmacked.

You book it out the doors, making your hasty retreat from the store, deciding that you will have to make the hike to the next nearest convenience store next time you need anything lest you ever see that cashier ever again and deal with the awkwardness of wishing a cute stranger a happy birthday unprompted.

You walk quickly back to your dorm, thinking back to what merely touching the cashier told you. You had to admit that she was innocent and cute looking. That you certainly wouldn’t mind doing lusty things with her given the chance, not at all.

You unload your groceries slowly into the shared fridge and pantry, wasting time until the evening, increasingly excited by the prospect of testing whatever that was out more, trying to figure out what it is. Another power? Just part of a greater power?