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. Maybe a gas-cooker and a pot, but I will be stretching the truth if I tell you I see those things. It is someone’s life, stuffed into a borrowed trolley, sitting in the mid-afternoon sun as the grime from a thousand tires drift slowly down upon it. Black, sticky grime, staining the jacket, the cardboard which will become a bed later tonight.

I enter the yard, and ask for Richard, newly-married and excited to show me his wedding photos. And I see it, my umbrella, on the table. My heart beats a little faster -  I have searched for days, rung cafes, asked strangers. The precious umbrella my friend from the capital gifted me, this brand able to stand the harsh Wellington gales, straight off the Strait. It is stronger than me. I bent in those winds, almost crumpled as loneliness chilled me to the core.

It is warmer here in north. As I wonder who will claim the trolley when dusk falls, where they will sleep when the rain comes, the lights change. The laden ute in front pulls away with a roar, dragging me behind in the slip stream. I am hopeful that more than the lights will change. Before it’s too late.



Image from Unsplash, by Umut Hasanoglu




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