The Parcel
The bicycle ride home, as the sun disappeared, was too long. My legs were aching and I was only half way.
I could see the children waiting in the kitchen for green cabbage and pasta soup. No words of consolation for any of us; except my sister rant that ‘at dawn and dusk angels flew with you.’ She did not have to cycle seven miles everyday. She was bereft of any new charms anyway. Her husband had died two weeks ago; quickly and quietly of a heart attack, while sitting beside a well stacked fire in his red and gold armchair.
I worked in the city so that we could eat and sometimes be warm, in a human prediction centre. Rows and rows of desks with terminals watching and guessing the shopping habits of the ‘warmers’. The people who could still afford to keep warm, run a car and eat a varied diet. We had none of those things but in order to live I dragged myself to my meagre job to watch the warmers while we FF ( ‘fucking freezers’) served them. If my prompts persuaded them to buy £100 of goods I earned £5. I had a case load of 1,000 clients.
We had a small house on the outfields of the city. Four and a half rooms for six of us. A small garden where we grew vegetables and a wood burner. My four children were hungry adults. Still at school every day and hunting for wood at any other time. We had been cold for two years. This winter lasted until the end of March. There was still ice on the pavements. Spring did not come. The temperature stayed under 10c until June and only for a few weeks did we have some warmth of 15c. The northern hemisphere was trapped in a cold vacuum all year.
I was thinking about Terry. She was always the first one to greet me when I got home.
‘What have you got to eat Mum. Have you been to the bank. Did they give you anything?’
She was a good head taller than me, but her arms were so thin and her face so drawn. Her cheeks lay pallid against her long brown hair and you could see the bones in her wrists. Worse still she had grown out of her winter boots and there was nothing to replace them.
Upcycling fashionistas had been replaced by survivors. Us ‘freezers’ were fighting for our lives because everything we had previously consumed was too expensive so we bought only the basics like flour, oats, pasta and oil.
Tonight we were eating vegetable pasta. All the vegetables grown in the garden. Well in the plastic dome that had been the garden. Satah would moan, Toby would eat his before I had eaten half mine and Jerry would sit silently, eyes down, pondering every mouthful before it was lost to his stomach. El, my husband had no work. He was a builder and that had all ended in the never-ending grip of ice and snow. We survived on my pay, collecting consumer information about the ‘warmers’ to pump back into their favourite sites and make them by certain goods. The heated gloves hats and leggings were the most popular at the moment.
I had cycled passed all the detached and semi detached houses of the warmers and the scenery was changing. The streets were narrower with no street lights or pretty gardens. The gardens were filled with thrusting green heads of cabbages. Now to my one pleasure. The food bank shop. It was really part of a house. It was run by three ‘warmers’ who collected left over food from the two out of town supermarkets. We were allowed one visit a month. We usually ended up with old bread, mouldy fruit, and soft vegetables. Sometimes there were extras. My sister would post a special parcel for me to the shop. If it was left at the post office or my house I would only get the empty box so she would post it to the food bank, knowing they would look after it. I had called in everyday this week, anticipating tins of soup, beans, dried pasta and milk powder sent from the big house.. There had been no parcel for two months now. No message of warmth from my sister’s house with its four bedrooms, spacious garden, heated rooms and real food. She was burying her husband.
‘Mrs Potts, your lucky day. We have some food and a parcel. You’ll need to put it on your back. It’s big. We’ve tied it up with string so that you can carry it’
‘Are you okay Mrs Potts, you look rather pale. Sit down. Have a glass of water. Come back tomorrow for your food bank tins.’
I too was hungry.
I sat down with the parcel on my knee. Inside there was something made of wood. It was at least one metre long. I could feel it had legs and feet.’ I was fatigued inside the inside of myself. How was I going to carry this lump of wood home.
‘Thank you. It’s from my sister. Thank you for keeping it safe.’
‘Mum we found no wood today even though we walked to the end of the heath. We saw some people actually digging up trees.’
I carried in the parcel. It was so heavy it could have been a small child. The children cut off the string, tore off the plastic paper and then we all stared in silence.
Terry was the first to move. She picked up the oak wooden angel. Its face was flat, its smile radiant and its wings tucked round its back. It looked completely at peace.
As she lifted it, the whole body was wrenched into two parts and inside were sealed plastic bags oozing red blood.
My sister had sent us thick, fleshy, sinewy red meat. We hadn’t eaten or seen meat for eighteen months. Only the warmers bought meat.
My sister had still not buried her husband.
The bicycle ride home, as the sun disappeared, was too long. My legs were aching and I was only half way.
I could see the children waiting in the kitchen for green cabbage and pasta soup. No words of consolation for any of us; except my sister rant that ‘at dawn and dusk angels flew with you.’ She did not have to cycle seven miles everyday. She was bereft of any new charms anyway. Her husband had died two weeks ago; quickly and quietly of a heart attack, while sitting beside a well stacked fire in his red and gold armchair.
I worked in the city so that we could eat and sometimes be warm, in a human prediction centre. Rows and rows of desks with terminals watching and guessing the shopping habits of the ‘warmers’. The people who could still afford to keep warm, run a car and eat a varied diet. We had none of those things but in order to live I dragged myself to my meagre job to watch the warmers while we FF ( ‘fucking freezers’) served them. If my prompts persuaded them to buy £100 of goods I earned £5. I had a case load of 1,000 clients.
We had a small house on the outfields of the city. Four and a half rooms for six of us. A small garden where we grew vegetables and a wood burner. My four children were hungry adults. Still at school every day and hunting for wood at any other time. We had been cold for two years. This winter lasted until the end of March. There was still ice on the pavements. Spring did not come. The temperature stayed under 10c until June and only for a few weeks did we have some warmth of 15c. The northern hemisphere was trapped in a cold vacuum all year.
I was thinking about Terry. She was always the first one to greet me when I got home.
‘What have you got to eat Mum. Have you been to the bank. Did they give you anything?’
She was a good head taller than me, but her arms were so thin and her face so drawn. Her cheeks lay pallid against her long brown hair and you could see the bones in her wrists. Worse still she had grown out of her winter boots and there was nothing to replace them.
Upcycling fashionistas had been replaced by survivors. Us ‘freezers’ were fighting for our lives because everything we had previously consumed was too expensive so we bought only the basics like flour, oats, pasta and oil.
Tonight we were eating vegetable pasta. All the vegetables grown in the garden. Well in the plastic dome that had been the garden. Satah would moan, Toby would eat his before I had eaten half mine and Jerry would sit silently, eyes down, pondering every mouthful before it was lost to his stomach. El, my husband had no work. He was a builder and that had all ended in the never-ending grip of ice and snow. We survived on my pay, collecting consumer information about the ‘warmers’ to pump back into their favourite sites and make them by certain goods. The heated gloves hats and leggings were the most popular at the moment.
I had cycled passed all the detached and semi detached houses of the warmers and the scenery was changing. The streets were narrower with no street lights or pretty gardens. The gardens were filled with thrusting green heads of cabbages. Now to my one pleasure. The food bank shop. It was really part of a house. It was run by three ‘warmers’ who collected left over food from the two out of town supermarkets. We were allowed one visit a month. We usually ended up with old bread, mouldy fruit, and soft vegetables. Sometimes there were extras. My sister would post a special parcel for me to the shop. If it was left at the post office or my house I would only get the empty box so she would post it to the food bank, knowing they would look after it. I had called in everyday this week, anticipating tins of soup, beans, dried pasta and milk powder sent from the big house.. There had been no parcel for two months now. No message of warmth from my sister’s house with its four bedrooms, spacious garden, heated rooms and real food. She was burying her husband.
‘Mrs Potts, your lucky day. We have some food and a parcel. You’ll need to put it on your back. It’s big. We’ve tied it up with string so that you can carry it’
‘Are you okay Mrs Potts, you look rather pale. Sit down. Have a glass of water. Come back tomorrow for your food bank tins.’
I too was hungry.
I sat down with the parcel on my knee. Inside there was something made of wood. It was at least one metre long. I could feel it had legs and feet.’ I was fatigued inside the inside of myself. How was I going to carry this lump of wood home.
‘Thank you. It’s from my sister. Thank you for keeping it safe.’
‘Mum we found no wood today even though we walked to the end of the heath. We saw some people actually digging up trees.’
I carried in the parcel. It was so heavy it could have been a small child. The children cut off the string, tore off the plastic paper and then we all stared in silence.
Terry was the first to move. She picked up the oak wooden angel. Its face was flat, its smile radiant and its wings tucked round its back. It looked completely at peace.
As she lifted it, the whole body was wrenched into two parts and inside were sealed plastic bags oozing red blood.
My sister had sent us thick, fleshy, sinewy red meat. We hadn’t eaten or seen meat for eighteen months. Only the warmers bought meat.
My sister had still not buried her husband.