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Back in People Town, Julian was having a busy – although, not especially productive – morning.
In light of the looming repossession deadline, all hopes were now pinned on generating a massive influx of never-seen-before cash-heavy, common-sense-devoid punters whose fanatical spending would somehow wipe clean all outstanding balances. And in the furtherance of this most fanciful of objectives, it was fair to say that a few lines had been crossed.
The reality of staring into the black hole of insolvency had meant that Julian’s business development attempts hadn’t been entirely restricted to confusing but technically-legal price promotions. Standards of morality – one of the numerous core values proudly and constantly trumpeted by Farmer Fred’s – had regrettably had to undergo a temporary relaxation. The time had now come for Julian to do all the things he had brainstormed when first starting-out almost a decade ago but had been too afraid / law-abiding to try. Desperate times called for desperate measures. From here on out, it was anything goes.
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His feet now throbbing from the three-quarters of an hour he had spent running around town distributing homemade ‘wholegrain insufficiency syndrome’ leaflets to the various doctors’ waiting rooms, Julian took a seat behind his counter and let out a groan.
It had just turned 11.32 am – twenty-eight minutes left to save Farmer Fred’s – however, the shop was still empty. The sandwich board – normally reserved for something anti-carnivorous but which now displayed ‘Buy five organic apples get most-blighted one free’ – had better attract some unsuspecting prey soon.
Picking up a sustainable pencil, Julian began to twirl it through his greasy locks. What to do? Ok, the basics. Had any payment that could be cancelled been cancelled? He shuffled through the invoices that lay strewn out in front. It appeared so. Hopefully it was prohibitively-expensive to access lawyers in the Third World. He swept the papers into the plastics recycling bin beneath his feet. Right, what else? Possibly another call to his mum? To really hammer home the advantages of her re-mortgaging her house? He looked at his watch and then twisted his lip. She had got rather upset when he had screamed at her less than twenty minutes ago. In all likelihood, she would still be sobbing even after the midday deadline was reached. He scowled. That one would have to be ruled out for practical reasons. He continued to think. Maybe some more ringing around to try to pull in financial support from friends? He grimaced. Could he face...? No, he couldn’t – not after those calls with the members of his spiritual group. ‘Everything happens for a reason’? ‘Karma’? He would flipping-well show them karma at their next weekend retreat – assuming his expulsion by the leader had just been a heat-of-the-moment outburst. Miserable, pious, passive-aggressive, unwashed, tie-dyed bast—
PING! A message popped up on the laptop that sat in front on the counter. Julian dived forward to look. Could it be a response to his latest posting, ‘Captive chimps prefer fair-trade bananas over rotting potatoes: a meta-analysis’?
Despite having sworn-off it after last time, Julian had once again embraced the online world and had taken today’s day of reckoning as an opportunity to repeatedly post the web links of all the studies he had amassed over the years – the ones that had ‘verified’ the virtues of organic, vegan products, prior to them being discredited for having contributors with very vested interests. It was ok; nobody would read beyond the title anyway.
Having now deleted the spam email for ‘Massive Member Mega Formula’ penis-enlargement pills – a product he wouldn’t consider on principle following use of the word ‘meat’ in the advertising copy – Julian slumped forward in his seat with his head in his hands. It was hopeless. Notwithstanding his morning of misinformation-spreading, his social media page – the ultimate measure of success and self-worth, if you believed what they said – was still showing no signs of life. Even the posts regarding the ‘real-life, clinical trials’ – the ones he had ‘run’ himself under the pseudonym of ‘Professor Planet-Saviour’ (affil. People Town University of Organic Food ‘Science’) – weren’t getting any attention. He sighed deeply. In the olden days, they would have created a bigger bang than that cosmetics-testing laboratory from his gap year in the Nineties. It seemed like nobody cared about health food anymore.
Two minutes passed.
Come on, come on! he willed, focusing on the door. Are you content to slowly poison yourselves with plump, non-parasite-ravaged, nice-looking fruit? Aren’t you at all worried that if something seems too good to be true it’s because it is? Get in here and get some tasteless roughage, pronto! Idiots!
This was impossible. He was just sitting waiting for the inevitable. Perhaps a little proper public engagement was called for?
He scratched through his beard and then glanced out of the window. The weather was reasonable. Maybe have a quarter of an hour standing in the street yelling at anyone who would listen about how the large local supermarket was decimating the Third World and supporting child labour and fuelling People Town’s probable obesity epidemic by selling pleasant-tasting, affordable food? Julian nodded to himself. Effective and therapeutic! Two birds with one stone – not that such an expression was permitted to be voiced on these premises.
Quickly, he ‘favourited’ an article entitled, ‘Three guinea pigs with gall bladders removed exist favourably on free-range kale diet’ – admittedly, not entirely vegan-compatible in its methodology – then began to ease himself from his seat in preparation for his slandering.
DING! The bell on the door sounded.
Julian snapped down the laptop lid.
A white man with dreadlocks and henna tattoos stepped in and began to wander around the shelves.
A moment later and he approached the till.
“Yes?” Julian lifted his chin. Dire need of customers or not, even after all these years it was still irritating how these sorts could afford the prices he charged. He glanced disdainfully at the goods that had just been dropped in front of him. “So, just the five kilos of dried apricots, one, two... four packets of chia, the onion bhajis and... the vegan halloumi?”
The man nudged up and down a multi-pierced nose.
Julian began to tap on the till keypad. “Ok, that’ll be... sixty-seven... no sorry, seventy-seven...” His heart began to beat double. “... and twenty-seven pence.”
DING! The door sounded again, this time sending a pang over Julian’s chest.
Without hurrying, the man reached into his baggy shorts and removed a handful of banknotes, a tobacco tin, and some keys, and then clattered the whole lot across the counter for Julian to pick through.
“Thank you.” Julian fought not to contort his mouth at his model customer. Discreetly, he clenched his teeth. Settled too low. Ought to have gone for eighty-seven. Still, eighty quid – once he had accidentally miscalculated the change – wasn’t to be sniffed at. Another six-hundred more customers like this in the next half an hour and he could tell the repo men exactly where they could stick their list. After a moment scrabbling with coins in the till compartments, he slid a random assortment of coppers and the man’s items towards him. “Here you are, sir. Have a lovely and productive day. NEXT!”
A very thin woman in a headscarf and a long, flowery dress stepped forward and hauled one of the shop’s ‘FF’S’-branded green, plastic baskets onto the counter.
Julian faked a smile, however, before he could remove the first item, the woman motioned to speak. “Um...” she began. She started to root through the things in the basket right under Julian’s nose. “Could you tell me,” she lifted a packet of olive, poppy seed and basil breadsticks which had been crushed by the turnip she had dumped on top of them, “do these contain gluten?”
Julian looked into her make-up-free face, then up towards the clock. If this was his last day surely he didn’t need to humour the idiots anymore? No. He bit his tongue. The show wasn’t over until the ill-looking, wheat-intolerant woman paid for the merchandise she had carelessly damaged. Farmer Fred’s had always been – and remained – an ethical business. There were principles at stake.
He took the packet from her and turned it around, skimming the ingredients. “It doesn’t mention it,” he said with a shrug.
He raised a finger to commence typing.
“But are you certain?” Now the woman was very close to the counter.
Julian took a step back to avoid the notes of soy milk.
Again, he looked at the writing. “Still doesn’t say,” he said. He shook the packet, clearly demonstrating the broken bits inside. “You put it at the bottom of your basket.”
“Yes,” said the woman ignoring his accusation and not bothering to point out that that sort of thing was only to be expected if they were to be found on the first shelf encountered. “But normally products say if they’re gluten-free, don’t they? I’m very sensitive so I—”
“Well, sometimes they do!” cut in Julian. There was no way she was putting this back on the display now she had snapped them all. “But I mean it’s only a small packet, isn’t it? There’s probably not enough space to write everything it doesn’t contain. Look, it doesn’t say ‘radiation-free’ but I’m pretty certain it must be.” Subtly, he tapped the laminated notice he had taped to the counter which read, ‘All products consumed ENTIRELY at customers’ own risk. This notice is printed on VEGAN stationery.’
“Yeah, I’m not sure,” she said, fiddling with one of the twelve filthy-looking friendship bracelets on her wrist. “Don’t you have any traceability information? The various inspection reports for the last three years for every factory that each and every one of the raw materials ever passed through?”
Julian raised his eyebrows. Ok, you didn’t bite the hand that fed you – especially if you were a vegan, and even if it was a vegan hand – but Jesus, he was sick of all this.
The woman twisted. “Perhaps I’ll give it a mis—”
BEEP BEEP BEEP BEEP. “Sorry, I already rang it through!” blurted Julian. “You’ll be fine. I’m pretty positive you’re good to go – plus let’s face it, it’s not a peanut allergy we’re dealing with, is it?” Almost ten years in this game had given him a good sense of hazard assessment. This was an allergy-lite at worst. Minimum risk. He stuffed the packet into a big, brown paper bag and then proceeded to lob a fair-trade pineapple in on top.
“Um...? I—”
“Shhh!” he hissed. “This is the important bit. You’ll put me off.”
Pounding away on his till, Julian quickly emptied the basket contents into the bag then turned to the woman. “That will be,” he fought back a smirk, “sixty... nine pounds and eighty... nine pence. Please.”
Gleefully, he watched as she delved into her bag-for-life for her purse. This was what it was all about. This was why he had gotten into this business. The more-money-than-sense brigade. The suggestible sorts. The whole notion of not wearing-out his coin drawer and his fingertips with piddling little transactions. Shame there weren’t more well-off and easily-led customers who for whatever reason were unable to shop in the mainstream and considerably-more-affordable establishments.
The door dinged as the woman left the shop.
Two customers in five minutes. One-hundred and fifty People Pounds. Not bad – but time wasn’t on Julian’s side.
Rolling up his sleeves, he settled back behind his laptop and flexed out his fingers. With still close to fifty-grand to go and only twenty-three minutes to do it in, the gloves now needed to come off. Even with today’s morality moratorium, he had genuinely hoped it would not have come to this.
He took a breath.
The moment had arrived. It was time to expose the users of social media to his archive of ‘real-life scare-stories’.