Illustrated by Lee Kuruganti © 2008
Hypermarket
© by Richard Hurndall
‘PPZZSSHHT.' The electric door swung open. Welcome to the Hypermarket. Jack screwed up his eyes until they accustomed to the glare of the artificial lighting, then he made a quick plan; we'll shop for ten minutes then leave.
“What do you think about that checkout assistant?” said Theodore Gill.
“What do you mean, what do I think? Sure, she's attractive but…”
“No not like that. Do you think she's one of them?” said Gill.
Jack frowned. “One of what?”
“MI5 trained. Special branch. Looking for the terrorists.”
Jack put his hand to his forehead and shook it in despair. Gill was starting to lose control on reality again.
“The secret service recruits these bums. And you know why? I'll tell you. These girls, they see everyone come in here, from all walks of life; ordinary Joe's, deadheads like me, mothers and children, but the enemy has to shop sometime as well. Everyone comes here.”
Jack scratched his head. “So how do they spot the terrorists?”
“Well, that's the point, they can't,” said Gill, “No-one can spot the enemy, and they're too good at hiding.” He stopped for a moment and focussed on one of the checkout assistants, a little freckled redhead that couldn't have been over nineteen years old. Gill cocked his head to one side and watched her pass items through the scanner, idly filling the bags whilst chewing on a gumstick.
“She's barely out of college,” said Jack. “You're way off target here.” Resignedly he marched onwards; he could hear the click-click of the badges on Gill's trench coat fade away as he walked. I've only come for a few items, Jack thought, and this deadhead was going to keep him here all day with his conspiracy theories. A few seconds later he heard Gill's coat clicking and flapping behind him again, that nasal whine calling him to wait up.
“Time for you to learn,” said Gill. “You got a club card?”
“A club card; no, why should I? Let me guess, there's another conspiracy here.”
“It's not even that,” said Gill, “the Hypermarket hides nothing, they're doing it in front of your very eyes. You sign up for their credit card and get discounts, right? Give me all your details; please tick this box sir and we'll give your details to likeminded companies who'll give you more special offers. Right?” he said.
“Right,” Jack sighed.
Gill pulled Jack into the dairy produce section and shouted in his ear. “Wrong!” A couple of shoppers looked up from their errands. “By ticking the box, you can say goodbye to your personal details, your identity, and look forward to a new life controlled by big business and your local hypermarket. “There are people out there,” Gill paused for a moment to catch his breath. “There are people out there using your name, date of birth and address because you ticked the box; you voluntarily signed your life away. What do you think of that?”
Jack looked at Gill who was staring back with wide eyes and a huge toothy smile, genuinely waiting for a serious response. What's happened to my friend, he thought; when we were children there was no inane rambling, no deadheading; Gill was the clever one who was going places. All set for the big career and high life, Jack was the one who wasn't supposed to make it. Gill had been at that stage where those with the fragility of genius could go either way, heading towards brilliance or dragged downwards into a personal hell created by their own psyche. Gill had chosen the latter purely through a series of unfortunate events; his girlfriend left, he fell in with the wrong crowd, and ended up with an addiction which the brilliant are most susceptible to. Jack had read about it; geniuses just didn't have the insight to see that something had gone fundamentally wrong, and since they had spent their lives used to being right all the time, the concept of ‘wrong' didn't compute. So they continue their descent into addiction and misery. Bummer, thought Jack.
They headed deeper into the Hypermarket.
The two friends turned into the aisle labelled ‘Bread' and started their shopping. They walked past the pastries and rolls and made their way to the rows of bread products, stacked on top of one another like the bricks of a house. Jack looked for a sliced loaf of white bread, scanning each label one by one; ‘medium wholemeal sliced,' ‘farmhouse multigrain,' ‘stone-ground wholemeal large un-sliced,' eventually picking up a small unassuming loaf hidden underneath the layers of healthy options.
Turning round, he found Gill munching on a croissant. “Where on earth did you get that?”
“The croissant section. I was hungry.”
“You can't just open random items, unless you want us to get thrown out before we've even started shopping.”
Gill grabbed hold of Jack's shoulder and pointed him towards the direction of the exit, pointing at the electric doors. “Look,” he said, “what do you see over by the exit.”
“A security guard, looking for thieves like you.”
“That's right, he's the security guard. Now tell me, can you see any other security people?”
“No of course I can't. But they've got security cameras up in the ceiling. Look.” Jack pointed up at the mirrored globes and stared at their distorted selves against the camera screen. “You're an idiot.”
Gill licked his fingers and started walking. “There aren't any cameras in there, my friend told me and he's in the trade,” he said. “The Hypermarket is sending out a strong message- please do not try and take the food outside without paying. But if you desire a snack while you shop, no problem.”
“Dammit! I'm starting to lose my patience,” said Jack. Gill turned round and ambled back to his friend. “Why?”
“It's just,” he paused. “I can't have a normal conversation with you anymore. You're always diving off into tangents, ranting about how the Man is after you. I'm getting tired of all these conspiracy theories, I wouldn't mind but you seem to just make it up as you go along.”
Gill smiled and nodded. “You don't realise how serious the situation is,” he said quietly. “These people, the men behind the big business of chain store shopping, they hold more power than you or I could possibly imagine. If they wanted to, they could have you removed, just like that,” said Gill whilst clicking his fingers. “And I mean permanently,” he added.
“I'm warning you,” Jack said, holding Gill's shoulder. “Create a scene and we're leaving. And you don't get any more help from me.” They walked in silence down the frozen food section.
“OK, what do you need to get next,” Gill said.
“Jam, jelly, where do you think they keep it.” Jack peered up at the ceiling again, looking at the posters, but could only see the ‘Frozen Vegetables' and ‘Ice Cream.'
“Well, the obvious place you would think is next to the bread section,” said Gill.
“What are you getting at.”
“I don't want to upset you.”
“Go for it.”
“Well, it's actually over on the other side of the store. I reckon they put it there so that you forget to buy it, and end up coming back later in the week for all the other things you forgot. And the more times you come back, the more likely you are to buy other things as well. Y'know, spend more money.”
Jack paused for a second. That actually made a lot of sense. Why do they put related products on the other side of the store? Why is the jelly so far away from the bread? Other breakfast products; cereal, juice, they're all separated into different sections. Gill put his hands over his face, expecting to get a slap, but Jack was having a moment of epiphany; this was more complex than he previously imagined. Jack looked at the other shoppers ferreting around with their trolleys, pushing one way and another, their eyes scanning the aisles in desperation for the next ‘buy one get one free' or ‘buy three for two.' A wave of sadness spread over him; he searched for his shadow but found that the artificial light had destroyed it.
“So let's go and shop,” said Gill from behind his hands.
“Yeah, let's do that and get the hell out of here,” said Jack.
“You've changed your tune.” Jack smiled at Gill and put an arm around his shoulder; they strode down the aisle and into the central pathway that cut through the Hypermarket, getting in lane behind the queue of men and women with trolleys and baskets.
They reached the cereal section a few minutes later. Boxes and boxes were piled up onto each other, forming a chequered pattern of yellows and blues that extended to the far end of the aisle.
“What's your cereal of choice,” said Gill.
“You know, I'm struggling to remember,” Jack said. They peered at the different brands; Honey-O's, Rice Crisps, Corn-O's, Lucky-O's, Healthy Option snack-bars, Weetaflakes, Allfibre. The fluorescence burned especially bright here; Jack felt a pounding in his head.
Gill picked up a box and looked at the cover. “Twenty-five percent extra free--do you want to try some?”
“What? No!”
“But it's free, the box says so. As long as you only eat twentyfive percent of it.” Gill ripped open the box and opened the bag inside; he held the box up to his face and started emptying the O-shapes into his mouth, letting most of the cereal fall to the floor around him. “Want some?” he mumbled with his mouth full. The other customers were starting to look over at what was happening, manoeuvring their trolleys carefully away from their vicinity and looking nervously at the check-out girls, who couldn't care less.
“How about this one?” Gill was pointing to a package of muesli. He started to open it, when three large men came out of a side entrance and walked quickly towards the pair, holding their transmitter phones in their hand as if it were a weapon.
Gill grabbed Jack and whispered in his ear. “This is it, they're going to try and take us away. Are you prepared to fight?”
“Not really.”
“Then run!” said Gill. He threw a handful of muesli in the security guards direction, forming a small cloud before settling on the floor. They reached the end of the aisle, and were about to run to the frozen foods section when Gill stopped. He turned around and started pushing against the shelves containing the cereal, which wobbled for a second. Shoppers in the aisle abandoned their trolleys and ran for cover—a woman started screaming. The boxes of cereal adjacent to Jack toppled over, creating a domino effect; within a few seconds boxes and boxes of cereal were crashing to the floor, creating a sea of flakes and oats as the bags burst open. A mushroom cloud of muesli formed and travelled upwards into the ether. They laughed as the security guards stumbled and slid through the aisle, desperately shouting into their transmitter phones for backup. Jack and Gill ran down the central aisle and headed for the exit; they were twenty yards away from freedom before six or seven security guards emerged from the fruit and vegetable section, cutting them off. They turned back to find the original three guards closing in, covered in a fine sheet of muesli.
“We're going to have to split up,” shouted Gill. “Maybe one of us will survive, I'll meet you outside.” Gill darted left into the canned foods section, while Jack turned right into frozen foods again.
A few minutes later, Jack burst out of the side entrance and into the busy car park; safe at last, unidentifiable amongst the cars and hordes of busy shoppers passing to and fro. He took a deep breath of fresh air and thought about the events that had just passed; what had got into us? He felt different; safe. He had never seen Gill get so agitated and behave so bizarrely; even in some of his crazier drug hazes he managed to retain some personal control. Later, Jack speculated that it was the claustrophobia; those high shelves, the glare of the fluorescent light that followed you around the store, the feeling of being herded like pigs in a pen, helpless to the inner machinations of the Hypermarket; you will buy what we tell you. Jack made a mental note to shop on his own next time, unaware that he would never see his friend again.
