I work all morning.
I go to the storeroom. The storeroom door has given way due to the weight of produce behind it, which spills out into the corridor. Other replenishment assistants scramble over a mound of cauliflowers and cabbages to retrieve the supplies they need.
I clamber in after them and fetch bananas and peaches and apples, wheel them to the shop floor on the trolley, and stack and polish them until they are gleaming and alphabetised. When I have replenished all the fruit I start on the vegetables. Swedes and carrots and potatoes are shifted from storeroom to shopfloor and arranged in their proper places. I buff the vegetables to a shine that is painful to behold beneath the striplights. Even the soil on the unwashed new potatoes reflects the light in amazing and unpredictable ways, like a collection of freshly waxed scalps.
My cloth becomes so worn that is unusable, and I fetch another from the supply cupboard. I consider wearing my sunglasses on the shop floor.
I work so hard that I forget to take my break at 10.30 am.
The Turtle sidles up to me at 11.23 am. She squints at the fresh produce.
Do you know what time it is? She says.
Straightening up from the banana and broccoli section, I remember what I was going to do today.
No. But I know what I have to do, I reply.
What? What, basically, do you mean?
I’m going to quit. I quit. I resign. I’m leaving. I no longer wish to work here. I don’t want to work for people I cannot understand 87% of the time or whip me just to make a point. I want to do what I want, not what someone else tells me. I don’t want to empty the storeroom on my own, and then find it full of produce the next day. And the day after that. And the day after that. And the day after that. For another four years or more. I want to marry Carmella and move to the Philippines. We will live near the sea and I will catch fish for our dinner and we will have a dog, called Ian.
I want to say all of these things, or just one of them, or anything at all. I stand there dumbly and grow hot beneath my polyester shirt, sweat prickling on my back and shoulders. A trickle of perspiration runs down my temple.
The Turtle leans closer, coiling her whip.
I need a break, I say.
Yes. Basically, you need a break, she says. Twenty minutes. Back to work at 11.44 am, no later.
Crack.
Ow.
The Turtle turns to go.
But I need to speak to you, today. It’s important.
The Turtle keeps walking. I’ll be in my office, she calls over her shoulder.
I need a cigarette.
I go to the storeroom. The storeroom door has given way due to the weight of produce behind it, which spills out into the corridor. Other replenishment assistants scramble over a mound of cauliflowers and cabbages to retrieve the supplies they need.
I clamber in after them and fetch bananas and peaches and apples, wheel them to the shop floor on the trolley, and stack and polish them until they are gleaming and alphabetised. When I have replenished all the fruit I start on the vegetables. Swedes and carrots and potatoes are shifted from storeroom to shopfloor and arranged in their proper places. I buff the vegetables to a shine that is painful to behold beneath the striplights. Even the soil on the unwashed new potatoes reflects the light in amazing and unpredictable ways, like a collection of freshly waxed scalps.
My cloth becomes so worn that is unusable, and I fetch another from the supply cupboard. I consider wearing my sunglasses on the shop floor.
I work so hard that I forget to take my break at 10.30 am.
The Turtle sidles up to me at 11.23 am. She squints at the fresh produce.
Do you know what time it is? She says.
Straightening up from the banana and broccoli section, I remember what I was going to do today.
No. But I know what I have to do, I reply.
What? What, basically, do you mean?
I’m going to quit. I quit. I resign. I’m leaving. I no longer wish to work here. I don’t want to work for people I cannot understand 87% of the time or whip me just to make a point. I want to do what I want, not what someone else tells me. I don’t want to empty the storeroom on my own, and then find it full of produce the next day. And the day after that. And the day after that. And the day after that. For another four years or more. I want to marry Carmella and move to the Philippines. We will live near the sea and I will catch fish for our dinner and we will have a dog, called Ian.
I want to say all of these things, or just one of them, or anything at all. I stand there dumbly and grow hot beneath my polyester shirt, sweat prickling on my back and shoulders. A trickle of perspiration runs down my temple.
The Turtle leans closer, coiling her whip.
I need a break, I say.
Yes. Basically, you need a break, she says. Twenty minutes. Back to work at 11.44 am, no later.
Crack.
Ow.
The Turtle turns to go.
But I need to speak to you, today. It’s important.
The Turtle keeps walking. I’ll be in my office, she calls over her shoulder.
I need a cigarette.
Hello, my name is Jack Sparrow. I'm a 50 year old self-employed Pirate from the Caribbean.
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