You and I are in the personal care isle looking at products for afro-textured hair, looking at promo pics of a model who’s had his hair bleached badly, thinning and paling so it can take the dye. You’re carrying several eggplants, long thin kind, and are only just noticing that one has mould, a rotten hole*, and you put my finger in the hole and the store-front explodes in a stream of people, supermarket gone dark as the Legion leaves electric and staff playing catch-up to double doors off hinges, auxiliary fluorescence coming on to an entrance of shattered glass and a quantity of movement that is very loud and volatile and stressful and is my finger is out of the hole, and now scanning backs of packs for ratio of ingredients. Was it Jojoba or Argan oil? This question along with 4/5/6 bottles into basket. Held gaze, both smile. ‘It’s good to stock up.’ and ‘What else do we need?’ 

The Manic pushes past to electronics and high risk items and we walk to look at employees gathered around an upended promotional offer for an end of season BBQ sale, black charcoal spreading between fresh veg and dairy, petering out to baby formula. The employees are uselessly sad and resolved, stating that they’re used to this sort of thing, this sort of behaviour, being treated this way. You really need to pee and ask them when the main power might come back on.

Across the road from the supermarket is a school. All the students are outside watching, lining edge of building pressed up against chain link, fenced in raised phones getting us on to the evening news, our light and in love, casual stroll to car aired before live streamed angry mom’s back isle cart chased protest of forearm swept fixtures, packed meat, such as steak, lamb or bacon, along with prime time material of an old checkout clerk down on his knees, wincing at the crouch, using a wad of torn cardboard to scoop smashed sauce into a plastic bin with white liner, you want them to ticker-tape that one tear crying emoji across the screen, I laughs and tells you you’re an asshole.

*you actually google to find the precise variety for the recipe, because you want to be specific here, but it’s just a scroll through 15 varieties of slender fruits and this store only has the one which you still can’t name