The Shopping Trolley
I am driving home from my occasional on-call work, on a busy and stifling Saturday afternoon, cars and truck and cyclists impatient at the intersection. They have been shopping, desperately needing a new pair of shoes, a bigger screen, fast fashion from the giants that lurk in the mall 300 metres up the road. And then I see it, out of the corner of my eye, as the lights are yet to change. It is in front of the service station, where the price of fuel is eye-wateringly high. High because of decisions made across the seas, where conflict is on-going and devastating, not for the Fat Cats who sit all powerful in their private air-conditioned planes, but for the people on the ground, those whose homes are being destroyed, leaving their lives in tatters. Grief and sorrow like I will never know; grief and anger like I will never understand. The shopping trolley is there, to my left. I have to focus on the road, but I glance over at it. Cardboard, flattened to fit; a jacket or shirt....