The fluorescent glare saturated even the most olive complexion to a dull moonlight grey. Faces became throbbing orbs of nothing. Blank and white and all the same. Tired eyes, sunken into the skull from the late nights; devoid of fun. Still late though, but only from the spinning boredom. The eyes were dead, glassy like a cold, dead fish, staring through the monotony, blinkered because nothing was great anymore. The eyes had died because somewhere, sometime, they had stopped looking, stopped searching for that great something. The life that had danced in the eyes, animating them with the longing of youth, all the desires and hopes and nightmares and fears were at rest. Long since gone to somewhere else far away. A great brick wall had been built on that old, old path between the eyes and the heart. All links severed, no way through. No way back. They were just organs now. Working in the way all the texts books say. That something else, higher than mere biology, had long since been compromised away. Left for middle age.

    “Click click click” and “click click click”. A break. Then “click click click click click”. The music, high pitched and awful. Some synthetic Classical tripe. It wasn’t real. Music hadn’t been real for a long time. Where was the new Golden Age? How long did they have to wait? There were two gold rings, golden butter, gold skart, but that was all wrong. It should have been better by now. The wheels kept turning and things were collected, piling up into a sordid mess of the week ahead. The wheels clicked and the food kept coming. It was a conveyer belt, a production line. A rolling blur of colours and shapes. Everything had its place and everyone knew where that place was. Marching to the rhythm of that artificial music, the metronomic wheels of the trolley keeping the beat. Steady and even, just how life should be. Or rather, how life had become. Nothing jarred. Modulations, key to contentment, were safe and harmonious. It was all just nice.

    “Darling, I’m just nipping to the loo. Won’t be a sec.” said the husband.

    “Okey dokey. I’ll be in the confectionary aisle. I want something sweet. See you in a minute, hon” said the wife.

    He trotted off. And she, with the trolley, efficiently clicked her way to the chocolate. Better than sex. The only option these days anyway. She reached the aisle and it was deserted. Empty and long and wide and it made her remember something from a long time ago. She smiled at this memory, long buried, but only because it had to be.

    There she stood, gazing at the gaudy array of treats. The decision was paramount. It was one of the few things she had to contemplate now. Nothing ever challenged her anymore. Then that memory flickered to life again. It caught alight and the blaze spread. Her throat was dry and her eyes were watery. Her cheeks were flushed and still she had not selected.

    She turned her head, not immediately because no one ever spoke to her. She wasn’t easily approachable. Aloof.

    Her eyes breathed in. The flames were fanned, a great bellows puffed into the fire, making it grow and consume more than was fair. A hundred glowing tongues licked and lapped and made her wish everything had been different. Or the same; but a long time ago before the weekly supermarket trip.

    “You didn’t come back” she replied to the man. Then her husband rounded the corner at the top of the aisle, ready for the onslaught of the checkout and the challenging, meticulous packing regime. He was happy.

    It had lasted a few moments longer than it should have. She had buried her face into his sweatshirt and devoured the fresh washing powder smell, she wanted to remember that. Her arms round his neck and his round her waist. She stood on tiptoes but was still never as tall. He had squeezed but still she held on. She had never known if that squeeze had been a “let go” or a “never let go”. It had always haunted her. She released him from the hug anyway and looked at the pavement. He looked at his watch.

    He smiled that enigma of a smile and looked her in the eye. He made no reply but she already knew. This was it.

    He laughed and turned to go. They took a last look and parted. Not in love. Probably, she thought. I doubt this is how it is. Take care.

    She was right. That was the end. He didn’t come back that first day, or the next, or any day after that. She knew he had gone but she didn’t stop hoping. After that first day she went home and crumbled; her back against the inside of the front door, keys still on the outside. Some blood grinned in the shape of a half crescent on the back of her blouse; a mole had been caught by a splinter on the door as she folded to the floor. Taking each next breath became a negotiation. Why should she? If she had to force herself to breathe, consciously make herself do it then why bother? It would never change. She thought, at that moment, if every breath was an individual effort, every second of everyday there was no point. Every breath represented another second that she found herself further away from what it should have been. If she stopped, it would all stop. He didn’t care, so why should she? Somehow though, the breathing continued. Then the crying began. It didn’t stop for a long time. The pain and want and lack and love all leaked out, glistening on her pale cheeks, running down to her neck, making it damp and hot and itchy. The underside of her brown hair was sodden; the locks, pulled carefully straight that morning, relaxed back into the natural tiny curls and waves. Salt water ran from her eyes and dropped from her ear lobes. Everything was wet, stained by the tears. The streams had torn her face, eroded the unusual, not-quite-beautiful beauty. The ceaseless rivers had beaten a runny black path down the pale hill side, coursing forwards, taking her with them. Washed away.

    It stopped. Everything does eventually. The tears had erased the mask she had worn that day. So many tears had come that her face was clean and bare. Her eyes were too. She wore that disguise everyday and today had been no different. She had gone, stomach leaping into impossible knots, tying itself around a thousand possibilities at what she might find. She had pretended that the people she met were the ones she wanted to see, the ones that the knots had been tied for. They were not. Instead, the bonds were tightened inside, choking and starving her. That sparkling, ill placed anticipation was strangling her, rising in her throat, willing her to scream or vomit or both. But she hadn’t. She had smiled and chatted. Politely acknowledging all those people that really didn’t matter. The ones she didn’t care about. The ones she didn’t give a fuck about. They were all there. It wasn’t fair.

    There was a day they had spent together once. A life time in twelve hours but it hadn’t felt that long. Too short.

    “I dunno. I’d be happy to go for a walk to that lake or up the hill. Or the cinema, or bowling, or a drink, or an art gallery…”

    “Let’s go for a walk then. There’s a bench that I like to sit on. We can sit together if you want. But first, we should go get some chocolate. I’m starving.”

    “Okay then, we could have like a chocolate picnic. Get some chocolate spread and make sandwiches. Melt some down for a drink. Umm… crisps. Chocolate crisps? How would we do that?” she asked and then answered her own question, “umm… well, we could get those unsalted crisps. You know, the proper plain ones, with that little blue bag of salt. But insteada sprinkling the salt on the crisps we buy some cocoa powder and put that on instead. Voila, chocolate crisps. Oh, and of course just normal chocolate for afters.”

    He smiled and laughed a little. She was a peculiar girl but nicely peculiar. She would ramble away on these fantastical tangents, and he never quite knew where they might arrive or when the tour would begin. He liked it. She was imaginative. He said, “I’m not keen on chocolate spread and your chocolate crisp idea is insane. Chocolate goes with cola or tea, not bread and certainly not flakes of fried potato. But I’m up for afters.”

    She laughed and pushed his arm, “I was only being silly. I think chocolate crisps might be kinda gross. Oooo…. but I bet you Mr. Wonka could make them work though.”

    “Ha ha… only if the Oompa Loompas are green fingered. And I’m afraid I believe their fingers are actually orange. Sorry, my dear, but your chocolate crisps might have to wait for another lifetime. The world is just not ready.”

    “Dammit. Ah well, let’s get going.” She laughed and smiled at him. She liked it when he joined in.

    The trolley whooshed down the frozen food aisle. It was empty and long and wide. He was doubled over the handle, hanging on, feet an inch or two off the ground, flying past the frozen pizzas and chips and teatime feasts. Faster than a speeding bullet he said. She knew the film. They took it in turns to ride the trolley up and down the supermarket waste land. This was the middle of the middle of the week; it was as quiet as a mausoleum but twice as dead. Except for them and the noise of their youth; the fresh smiles of friends having fun. Doing nothing, but having fun all the same. Being in each other’s company was enough. The rest was a bonus. Just background. They arrived at the confectionary aisle via the long way round. It was her turn to surf the dirty cream linoleum. Half way along the ride, the wheel of the trolley twisted at an awkward angle and somehow, she landed on her back.

    She lay there. Not certain how long. Eyes closed, wrinkled nose, scarlet cheeks. Sore bum. She wasn’t hurt. Her head was elsewhere and her body felt really long… or was it that the place she was lying felt really long… something felt long or far away… but other than that… there was no pain. Just the pain of humiliation. Oh, bugger. Shit. I bet he’s left. She forced herself to open her eyes and at first all she could see was the glare of the tube lights, hideously elongated fireflies. Probably from the Jurassic era. Terrifyingly large and trying to burn her eyes out with their torches. Smaller, tiny fireflies whizzed and flicked in front of her eyes too. She didn’t know if they were black or white or if they were really there. They were too fast to catch, and they moved, on mass, when she glanced around. She lifted her head from the cold, plastic floor and the fireflies swarmed into darkness for a second or two before they dissipated and her vision cleared. He was still there.

    “Jesus, are you alright?” he said. He sounded almost concerned. “That was pretty bloody impressive.”

    “Yeah, I’m alright” she summoned a grin. “I did it on purpose, anyway. I wanted to shake things up a bit. Also, my name isn’t Jesus.”

    “Uh huh. I think you’re wrong but you’re welcome to be. I think you’re just not very good at trolley surfing. That’s what it is.” He said and offered her both his hands to help her up. She took them, they were warm and big and then she was standing up. Closer to him than before and still with her hands in his. He was smiling at her, a smile she hadn’t seen before. In his eyes she thought she glimpsed something more. He began to talk but stopped almost immediately. And then he blinked and it was gone. So were the smile and the hands. The moment was broken. The smooth rolling approach had shattered on the dark rocks.

    “As long as you’re alright… Good. Thought I’d lost you for a minute there. Noooooooo!!!” he joked as he waved his arms, mocking a fall down a sheer cutting cliff face.

    “Ah, shut up, you. You’d be feeling guilty if I was dead. And d’ya know what? I’d come and haunt you, just to make you feel worse.”

    “You mean I can’t even get rid of you by killing you. Well, once a stalker, always a stalker.”

    She laughed and he laughed and they talked while they chose the chocolate.

    The remainder of the day had rushed by. On the bench, the bench where he liked to sit alone they had sat together and talked the world away. It was just them and that was how it always should have been. Their denim clad legs touched, from the knees, right down to their trainers and neither of them pulled away. They continued to talk but every time his foot nudged hers she fell for him all over again. That was the day she wanted back.

    Months and years and days and seconds and weeks and hours fluttered away on delicate gossamer wings, fleeing to that enchanted kingdom somewhere a long time ago. He never called her. And the time chattered by. But she didn’t listen to it. She was listening for him. For a long time. She wanted to know what had happened to him. Was he still alive? She would revisit the places they had gone together and eat the things he liked to eat. She watched the programmes he had watched and re-ran conversations in her head. They were just conversations with dead people though. Nothing more. They meant less and less as the breaths slipped by. They had meant nothing to him and that’s what hurt the most. She had thought they were friends. For him, she was a passing thought, an occasionally welcome distraction, something to do while he waited for his life to begin. His memory consumed her. It wouldn’t leave her be. She would lie and think of him and sometimes she would fall asleep. In her dreams, he was there. He would be smiling his enigmatic smile, his last smile to her and saying, I did come back but you had gone. And she would panic and cry and say but I never left. And he would say, you will. She would say I wouldn’t I missed you it was always you. I know, my dear but for me I thought there was better I thought you would still be here. But I was. And then the hug would dissolve as she awoke. Sometimes she could still smell the washing powder.

    She did go. She married a kind, dull man and become his dull, kind wife. Convinced herself it was love because there was no one else. Life became a march towards the inevitable. A carnival without the colours and fun and glitter. Everyone was the same. Everyone went to the supermarket and bought the same things every week. The rainbow had dripped into seven different shades of grey. Rewritten opulent youth, given boredom intravenously. Her friend was secreted away in a thought, right at the back of her mind. Hard to get to. A special treasure placed in a shoe box, in a high dark, deep cupboard. Like those photos of someone from before. Or that ancient birthday card with the squiggly, blue, long-dead writing. Those mementos if, too often brought into the light, would make life harder to live. That’s where he stayed for the largest part of many years. Bad days would come and she would shout at the kind, dull husband and search the faces of strangers just to make sure. She thought, she might see him one day but not know him. That was the worst thought.

    “I did come back but you had gone” replied the man as her husband sauntered towards the reunion. And he smiled that smile he had given her once before on that too short day all those years ago. She looked at him. She did know him. Of course she did. How could she not? He was the same and so was she. She flew into his arms, smelt the washing powder smell and her life began again.

This entry was posted on Tuesday, May 8th, 2007 at 8:19 pm and is filed under Short stories. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.