A Maltese man who was reported missing five years ago has been found in Smart Supermarket.
Father-of-two Liam Cuschieri was last seen on April 20, 2019 after telling his wife he was going shopping at the Birkirkara supermarket. But Cuschieri, then 38 years old, never came back.
Cuschieri, who emerged from the rear entrance of Smart this afternoon, says he became lost in the supermarket’s labyrinthine aisles.
“I remember being in the frozen foods section and suddenly feeling disorientated. I tried to make my way to the check-out but I just couldn’t figure out how to get there. You’d go down one aisle and hit a dead end. It just didn’t make sense!”
Cuschieri said I was too embarrassed to ask anyone for help, “because what kind of moron gets lost in a supermarket?”
After the store had closed, a panicked Cuschieri wandered into the kitchenware aisle, where he made himself a bed out of paper-towel rolls and settled down for the night.
“At first I tried to find a way out, but after the first year I gave up and came to terms with the fact that Smart would be my home for the rest of my life.
“Being lost in a supermarket isn’t actually that bad. You basically have an unlimited supply of everything need, like food and alcohol. I even found a beach ball and painted a face on it so I could have some company.”
All this changed last month, when Cuschieri heard a customer talking about how Italian low-cost retail giants Eurospin were set to open several stores in Malta.
“If there’s one thing Malta needs, it’s more supermarkets, and I found a renewed determination to escape this maze so I could shop at these new ones. And er…to see my wife and kids again, obviously.”
After a failed attempt to navigate the supermarket using bin bags that he had tied into a long rope, Cuschieri did what he had avoided doing for the past 1,825 days: he asked someone for help.
“It was weird speaking to another human after so long, but she pointed me towards the exit, and here I am, free at last.”
Liam’s wife Tanya said she couldn’t believe he had been found.
“Smart was of course the first place we looked for him when he first went missing, since that was his last known location. But we couldn’t search for long because staying in there for more than an hour is treacherous.”
Michael Smart, the supermarket’s owner, said he was glad that Cuschieri has been found, and that the mystery of the store’s discrepancy between its sales and inventory had finally been solved.
“I hope Cuschieri finds a job soon because he’s racked up one hell of a bill in here,” he said.
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