205: Junior

Please prepare to push the trolley off the end of the conveyor. Please prepare to push the trolley off the end of the conveyor.

The trolley, without any warning, shot forward on the smooth floor beyond the travelator. Finding my feet still firmly planted on the old surface, top half unwilling to release its grip of the bar, it began stretching away with the trolley. Still unable to let go, it flipped up on the back wheels, an avalanche of tinned beef broth, noodle soup, sweet corn, cauliflower, Savlon, frozen oven fries, malt Wheaties, red bush tea, reduced lamb mince, yoghurt, stuffed crust pizza, compost, kindling and logs, those baguettes you finish off in the oven rocket, a potted basil plant deodorant along with other miscellaneous dubris I'd unconsciously tossed in, all with viciously pointed edges and an unbearable accumulated weight about them all over my back, thwacking ribs, kidneys, neck and head before the front eventually slammed down on the midpoint of my buttocks, wheels continuing to rotate, squeaking.

I raise my head a little, seeing the familiar feet of Maurice Gibb Jr. White tennis shoes with lime green laces, his first name stencilled in orange marker pen, scuffed but still legible along the toe box. He knelt down, holding a deflated bike tire in his hands. You know, this invention is not only annoyingly precarious and disposable, a technological innovation paused at the perfect point in its evolution so as to satisfy the market that is inflate, puncture, replace, but also its invention and popularity created a thirst for rubber that maimed, mutilated, mutilated, destroyed generations of people and whole environments. He rested his hands on the floor, then chin on top of hands. Sometimes, he continued, when I'm cycling along, I get so nervous about getting a puncture, one that will mean I have to walk to work, be late, then have to work through my lunch break, or worse still, I'll go through the rigmarole of replacing the back inner tube and the thorn, hidden undiscovered, will puncture my spare. And I'll have to walk into work, be late, and work back the time that the only way I can calm myself is to wet my pants. And remember, I wear light coloured trousers as it brings out the colouring of my eyes. His eyes were indeed beautiful, mesmerising, a constantly shifting palette. Oh, I said. I thought you wore light orange and yellow bleached denim tie dye jeans. An odour of ammonia gathered in my nostrils. No, and I don't use mothballs either.

Some time ago I'd drawn my body fully under the upturned trolley, shuffled onto my side and started eating my way through the unpurchased provisions bunched up with me in the makeshift cage awaiting the facilities team's arrival. Maurice, squatting on top on the trolley, closely watched the movements of those around us, making unrelated comments as customers passed, doffing their hats or hurrying off without a glance. I occasionally slipped through the trolleys, grating some chunks of tuna, a few skittles, syphoning cola into a straw before blowing it into his opened mouth as he giggled and gargled like a newborn. The supermarket stuttered into shutting down, staff exiting first, then the lights reduced to a red glow, tills continuing to beep, serving the remaining customers before the unsettling vibrations of the furnaces beneath began to foreground themselves. Unmanned cleaning vehicles ploughed through each aisle, getting ever closer, clattering, shelving, knocking product from them into piles, conveniently building up in its pathway until we both found our way amongst the debris being swept into the vast back areas of Lofties, towards gargantuan groaning incinerators.

We both rolled casually from our mound to avoid cremation, enabling us to roam between delivery lorries as their hauls were processed through the various channels into the now empty main building, unloading treasures taken from every extremity of the globe, a sphere where all roads led to where we stood. Maurice kicked a damaged box of plastic talismans, spilling them onto the floor where they writhed themselves into stillness. I looked closely at Maurice, able to witness at first hand the dark amber spread over his trousers. I ruffled his hair, curling it with my circulating fingers. Relax. I'm here. Let it all go. We'll get there in time together.