[ WP ] Stopped dead in my tracks

Scene: Walmart # 1676. I recover from things easily enough; I had just left the Electronics department where an older employee with salt-and-pepper hair and a sunken mouth and BRENDA on her name tag asked me, in a muttery tone of voice, if I had any meth. I just gave her the wide stinkeye and simply turned to give her the back of my head and walked briskly away. *That* did n't bother me much; it was a rural Walmart and to be expected. 
 
 I was coming up on the grocery section, in the large throughway aisle betwixt the shoes on the right and junior misses on my left, when I came upon a sight to behold. Picture this: 
 
 A mother in a motorized wheelchair. Hair a thinning, gingerly red; complexion a cross between pizza and cottage cheese; face of a man, girth of a hippo whale, arms flabby with tired fat muscles cradling -- yes, cradling, to her chest and at that point my mind took in the bare shoulder with the bunched cloth of a sleeve rolled around her elbow as her shirt was pulled down to breastfeed, in public, a teeny tiny newborn baby. Her mannish face, as unpalatable as it may be to the human eye, wore a contented Virgin Mary expression that was beautiful in its own grotesque way. 
 
 Accompanying her was a child who could have been anywhere from four to eight; it was difficult to tell as it was an extremely chubby, swollen specimen who was clearly her mother's daughter and on her way to needing a motorized wheelchair of her own. She was pushing a cart loaded with bagged and canned dog food, bagged and canned cat food, bags and bags of kitty litter, a smattering of batteries, mens' socks ( white athletic ) and underwear ( white briefs ), and beneath it all, one package of diapers. She was as wide as she was tall, and her sweatsuit stretched on her ample frame. Her face was slack, her mouth open and moist with unchecked saliva, flecks of its dried salt spraying out with every exhalation she took, her eyes heavily lidded as if she were about to fall asleep, yet watching the infant suckle its mother's breast with primal, reptilian intensity. 
 
 Even my autopilot function was dumbstruck. I was not *being subtle*. This living exhibit of art must not be aware of its observance lest the illusion breaks. *Shoes! * I'm interested in some shoes. I veered off to the right and beelined straight to the sneakers, and I continued to observe them, albeit from behind, with my peripheral vision as I balanced a display shoe in my hands. 
 
 They were making movement, and I was beginning to feel distraught at the disruption that I could have made. But no, the baby was done feeding and the mother was hoisting it up to her shoulder with great effort, her flabby arm muscles quaking and trembling from a combination of weakness, elbow joint pain, and just struggling with the unnecessary weight. Once the child was settled against her cushioned collarbone, her huge hammy hand began to whack the child's back in what she perceived to be light, tender taps. The baby's head bucked up and down in time with the thudding, its eyes widening almost comically. Its mouth worked as if it did n't know whether to cry or remain stoic, when all of a sudden * -- BLUPH! -- * a thin bubble of regurgitated breast milk popped out. 
 
 At this point the girl reached out excitedly, her swollen fists opening and closing as she grunted through closed lips at her mother. `` Mmm! Mmm? Mmmm!'' Her tongue flicked out and licked her lips slowly from side to side during this communication. With yet another great, trembling effort of her tired arms, the mother lifted the baby off of her shoulder and handed her with great ceremony and gravity to her daughter. The baby was dribbling yet another stream of spit-up over its lower lip and down its chin, and the daughter took the baby beneath the elbows, brought its face close to hers, and proceeded to *lick off the spit-up directly from the baby's chin and lips*. 
 
 It's a little difficult to describe what happened next, but it's similar to watching a live-streamed movie online when it decides to pause and buffer at a specific, horrific scene. Since it's live, it does n't pick up from where it left off -- it skips ahead a few minutes and you're left confused about what you could have missed. All I could think about for that time period was the sheer audacity of the act -- how come the few other customers had n't said anything? Did n't Walmart have security cameras that looked out not only for shoplifting, but child endangerment as well? Is this why their Code Adam drills are such colossal failures? These ideas came in the form of indignant abstract epiphanies that overwhelmed any narrative inner dialogue that could have led to my brain making an executive decision. When conscious thought returned to me, the family of three had disappeared into the Walmart abyss, never to be seen again. I put the shoe on a random shelf and left as quickly as I could. 
 
 I was trying to unsee the image in my mind until I walked into the front door and my wife was sitting at the kitchen table. She was hunched over a bowl of macaroni and cheese. Upon hearing me come in, she turned to look at me. With her mouth still full of yellow cheesy cream, she asked me if I picked up the tupperware containers. It was a little difficult not to picture the scene of a fat little girl licking spit-up from a baby's mouth whenever we kissed after that.
