corner_shop DannyH The good stuff is made of cherries. You can keep the mint flavour. It’s for sadists. No, I don’t need the cool fresh feeling of hyperventilation coursing through my nostrils. I want the sweet taste. I want freedom from this feeling of cleanliness. Give me dirty cherries. Allow me the indulgence of sticky juice coagulating on my chin. I’ll pay you enough. You’ll be well rewarded for the good that you have done me, for the release that you have permitted me. I need the flavour. Without that taste I am extinct, a dinosaur, my frame too large and unwieldy for my tiny underevolved brain. Bereft, I am a lumbering beast, dragging my cumbersome tail behind me. But. Give me just a sample, just a momentary re-acquaintance with that burst of fruit upon the tongue, that explosion of ripeness, that equilibrium of juice and flesh, and I shall be the nimblest gymnast ever to take the floor. My wings regained, I should be a dinosaur no longer but instead that developmental through road that runs from pterodactyl to archaeopterix to eagle. Give me that wondrous produce and I shall fly through aeons of time in a fraction of a fraction of a second and appear before you as the very choicest example of natural selection. I beg of you. Do not chain me to my prehistoric past, do not abandon me in the jurassic mists. Evolve me. Free me. Let me become me again. “Sorry mate. Like I said. We’re out of the cherry flavour. I’ve only got mint left.” Oh allright. Give us three packs of the mint ones. Have you got the time by the way? “Its almost three thirty.” Oh bugger. I’ve left my cat for nearly three days. Its bound to have made itself unwelcome. Can’t you look after it? No. I suppose not. You’ve got your shop to take care of and of course that must come first. You can hardly be expected to pet-sit for every one of your customers. No, don’t worry. I don’t expect you to understand. Understanding is not your job. You’ve had no training in counselling. I can tell that by the way you are not mirroring my behaviour. If you had had counselling training you would have crossed your arms when I did and uncrossed them when I put my arms on the counter and leaned forward to make my rather over the top speech about the… but enough of that. What good does it do us, or indeed the cat, no doubt by now both terrified by and mortifying to its involuntary new owners. If I had had the first clue that it would go so far, I would never have begun the whole enterprise in the first place. Although I suppose that was the point, in a way, to see how far it would go. Well. I know now don’t I? Too far. That’s the answer. Farther, or is it further, than I ever thought possible. “That’s two pounds ten.” Yes, of course. You don’t want to listen to the ramblings of an incontinent old fool. You want the money. That’s what you’re here for. Not a counsellor, not a petsitter, not an evolutionary biologist for God’s sake. You are a shopkeeper. The shop is all you need to keep, although you also have kept time for me, haven’t you and that’s a skill we’d all like to have. To be able to keep time. I’d like to have it locked up in a box so it couldn’t get out to nibble away at my bones and harden up the pathways in my brain and make me prattle like an idiot to people in shops. Then whenever I got sick of myself I’d let it out of the box for a bit and allow myself to slide a bit further into forgetfulness. Two pounds ten you say there’s five. And give me a copy of the local as well. Got to keep up on who’s fucking who on the council, eh? I’m sorry if my manner is distasteful to you. I picked up a certain coarse way in the army and I’ve never felt like shifting it. Too long in the habit now. My children are disgusted by me. Disgusted. They don’t come and see me any more. I’m not considered safe with the grandchildren. They watched a documentary and now they think I’m going to fuck their little Tommy up his tiny little arse. They should see the state of my cock. Then they wouldn’t worry so much. Do I sound bitter? I heard myself then and I thought I sounded bitter. I don’t want to be bitter. Bitterness eats away at you doesn’t it? I’ve never understood why people don’t try to be nicer to each other. There’s such a lot of bastards in the world aren’t there? “That’s three, four, five pounds. Thanks very much.” Ah, the old fashioned way. You don’t see that much any more what with electric tills and sulky little bitches on all the counters. Counting it back up, as if you were giving me my money back. Its nice isn’t it, and sensible too. You’re covered, I’m covered. We both know exactly where we stand. No need for one of those unfriendly little printed signs telling me to check my change myself because you’ll just tell me to fuck off if I come back later to complain. No. That is our business concluded like gentlemen and I respect you for that. “I…um…” Right. I’ll be on my way. Maybe I’ll see you again. I usually go to the other one round the corner, what they used to call Jones’s. They know me in there. They keep the cherry ones in for me only I’ve missed them today and you’re open later. Sorry if I’ve disturbed you going on. People around here are mostly used to me. They humour me. “No, no. It’s er…good to hear a man whose got something to say for himself.” It is isn’t it? It’s a good thing. To talk. You shouldn’t just let yourself fall into the silence they all expect of you. Don’t let them shut you up. Don’t be that smiling dummy in the corner they want to use like a ride at the fair. We’ve all got so much to say but we just can’t say it because we’re scared of what people will think of us well fuck that. I’m too old to care what people think of me any more. I couldn’t give a monkeys. Won’t be long now til I’m off, dead, fucked, finished. Who wants to be lying there, thinking about all the things you could have said with the time getting shorter and shorter until you feel like the only thing you ever said in your whole miserable life that you really really meant was goodbye. “See you then.” Yes, tada. Nice talking to you. 030318 ... andru235 tada! niiiiiiice "a sheer delight" 050823 ... birdmad abso-fucking-lutely brilliant, i like it scratch that... i fucking love it, man. 050824 ... DannyH Thank you. That means a lot. Especially coming from you. 050825 ... Doar i concur. 050825 what's it to you? who go blather from