FFS

It’s like, you built this. You don’t just get to say I quit and start again like you’re 77 and can father a new family without consequence any time you feel up to it. You built this and you leave it behind. The guardians of the world say no while you try to cut it out like circles from a tight orange dress. But who listens to a guardian? We’ve got the loud man here. And he’s outwitted us again because in the rules, rules he wrote, it says culture is the hand around the wrist.

**

You Get Free Parking All Day

The word community is on repeat. There is a broad banner and there it is. There is no rain here. In here we are safe from the weather. No heating either, though. There is no one here really. The pub is closed. Little trees have been popped at the bases of all the stairwells so we don’t notice the stairwells and try to go up them. We’ve got to ignore the fact we are all ashamed.

In Car Park A a couple of people are selling upright crystals from the back of their van. Someone is presenting a battery-powered hamster mimicking sentient movement in a translucent sphere. Someone is selling a DVD we’ve all seen and can’t play. I see a thing one of my children might like, but fuck it, I don’t want another exchange.

My mother has been decluttering her flat for the best part of a decade.

Wire meshes emblazoned with rows of lights are arranged to attract us. A train, a Santa, a reindeer with shades. Take a selfie here. And they are doing; it’s Christmas. Show them. Tell someone. This is premium retail space.