155: Lemons

They say if life gives you lemons that you should make lemonade, but as you’re allergic to lemons the lemonade you make will always be destined for others. You’ll never get to enjoy it. And you’ll get horrible rashes all over your hands, your skin breaking out in hives from contact with the pulp and juice, and your throat will swell up from the citrus fumes. But it’s what you must do with the lemons of life. They don’t say if life gives you lemons, ask it to stop giving you lemons, and maybe give you something else. Like prunes, or antihistamines. No. You must take the lemons, like they say, and make delicious lemonade for all the customers. All the customers, backed up right to the outskirts of town. Yeah, it’s quite an order. So you’d better get to it. Fire up the juicer. They’re all there just hemmed in and shut up in their cars going nowhere, waiting for that lemonade. You just have to figure out how to get it in there… You see, sometimes, looking out over that bitter, congested highway of loss, with the burnt-out cars piled high along the edges, and the ones still smouldering, scattered about the lanes, getting slowly nudged out the way by timid armoured SUVs like overfed cats toying apathetically with the mice they’ve just eviscerated, giant gas guzzlers stuffed with sticky toddlers ballooning and scritching at their parental loaves lodged in the front cab, dead eyes glazed over by tinted windshields… Sometimes, looking back over that choked-up highway, we can catch a glimpse of something in the distance, something signalling that we may overcome our problems and ascend to a higher plane: a plane of loftier, slightly upgraded problems, with higher premiums and bigger down-payments. If we can just muster the strength to wade against the tide, push back against the flow of traffic, and work our way back to ourselves, before that glimmer of our origin sets behind the dark horizon of the rolling present. But first, you’ve got some lemonade to sell, remember? And hurry, it’s going to get warm, and flat, and the fruit flies will get in. No one will buy it then. Try this one, the Subaru, they look hot in there [knock knock knock], how about the Mazda, he looks like he could use a glass [knock knock knock knock] hmm, no dice. Try the Scirocco, she looks parched [knock knock knock knock knock]. OK, how about the Passat ….[fades out as high pitch tone fades up and the pitcher smashes]. And as you lie there in the gutter, surrounded by broken glass, paper straws and yellow and white gingham napkins, across the road opposite, the last thing you see before you succumb to your anaphylactic seizure, is a Glacier-blue Audi TT Mk1, reversing into a parking spot between an ice-cream van and some wheelie bins. The man driving it sports a sorbet green blazer with one elbow breaching his lowered window and he looks behind him as he backs in. As he gets closer to the bins he starts to make a nnnnnnnngggghhh sound of concentration through gritted teeth until his rear bumper makes contact with the bins, at which point the sound modulates to a nnnrrrraaaaarrrghhhh as the car seems to uncontrollably accelerate and pitch the first bin over, mounting it and tearing off the plastic lid and denting and scuffing up the steel flank emblazoned with the dos and don’ts of council refuse protocol as the bumper is wrenched off and the tailgate crumpled inwards, rear windshield shattering as the man’s mouth starts to boil over into a helpless, rattling, guttural shriek, sweat spraying from his brow and uselessly activating the automatic wipers as the airbags inflate and the alarm sets off and the immobiliser kicks in as the vehicle picked up even more speed and power and mounts the second bin which has been dominoed over by the first as the rubber tears off the rear wheels and the screaching hubs lacerate the bin’s cheery yellow-painted steel, cutting in like mad circular saws and the man’s squeeks are drowned out by a deafening metallic screech, as sparks and putrescent bin juice spritz out into the afternoon sunshine, lingering in a dense mist above the mid-school-run pavements, filling the mouths of gasping children and splattering the backs of parents’ misplaced hands as they fail to shield their fragile darlings from the caustic airbourne cytotoxins.