Page 26, Line 26 by Hayden Maskell
Line 26, Page 26 of ‘All Our Shimmering Skies’ by Trent Doulton.
“This is mine,” she screams. “Give it back!”
Grace watches two heaving bodies fight over a fleece blanket. They pull to and fro with savage force, red faces dripping with sweat. Like so many others today the screaming woman has lost her humanity. She is a roiling pustule of rage, while her opponent is a malevolent black-eyed brute, his shaven head glistening. A bedraggled flock of onlookers eye the exchange like seagulls at a picnic, circling, awaiting the moment to raid the scrappers’ shopping trolleys. Others wander past unfazed by the fight. They prowl and snatch at toilet paper, casks of water, mismatched slippers, perfumes. The brute finally tears his prize away and the woman unleashes a guttural roar.
Grace shakes herself out of her stupor and pushes through the aisles. The derelict department store is a venue for frenzied survival instincts. Desperation had swept in before the doors had opened. Hours later clouds of bodies swarm in every direction, piling anything and everything they can into teetering trolleys. Under flickering fluorescent bars, Grace sees yet more bodies pulsing at the malfunctioning automatic doors and thinks of the sticky cluster flies that would come every summer to the sheds and outbuildings at home. As she pushes her way through the melée she considers escape: it would be easy in the chaos. But no, she needs this, needs food and life’s necessities. The voice in her headset chirps; she is needed at the exchange desk.
Dante’s circles burst this morning, thinks Grace, and the slurry is now Black Friday at Kmart.
Hayden Maskell