I have dreams of a dystopian future.
Where a city lays ruin and not a single thing moves.
Grey dust lays atop of grey matter and leaves grey outlines in a grey skyline where grey buildings once where but have now grey tumbled.
Two people still live here. Somehow. Lately they have sustained themselves on a few remaining packets of Peanut M&M's, found in a cobwebbed vending machine situated in a previously overlooked leisure centre foyer.
A half chicken half man wearing only a captains hat and a bra, clucks and struts and clambers up a large pile of brick and cement whilst gritty-blues-like-metal-punk-funk tunes click and drone from an old boombox he carries on one shoulder.
Across the rubble his small female companion, kitted out with a gas mask and a "kiss the chef" apron, also sifts and lifts large chunks of grey debris, looking for lost relics and objet d'art.
Old shoes should be collected, even if they have to be unlaced from skeleton feet.
Handbags, hats, belts, bicycle parts, old tin, rope, string, chord, etc, trimmings, glass eyes (rare but quite a find), newspaper, cutlery, glasses/spectacles/shades, bottles, ice cream tubs, furs, jewellery, electric fans, balls, musical instruments and very, very small things.
They scuffle and rummage with a penchant for desperately seeking eclectic adornments to hang, dangle and decorate their bar.
The last bar on earth.
Appocolypso.
The door hangs loose on the hinges, as each time they enter they kick it hard open, so full of excitement to give home to the lost objects they've reclaimed.
They leap across old tables, and climb over chairs. She's the head chef, he looks after the bar.
"A drink my dear?" he asks the mannequin they propped up on a stool, with blu tacked hand holding a five pound tip that can't be spent anywhere near here anymore.
He pours brown-water-whisky into an already too full tumbler, fullup from all the other drinks undrunk.
She clatters pots and pans whilst chasing twenty pantry escapees that squeak and flee and she curses "fucking rats!" and wonders what they'll serve for tea.
Then with an almighty thwack, she whacks a rat, the others see, they form an orderly line and march right back to the cage from whence they came.
It's darkish, but lit by furious glowing flames from flares they found in an abandoned ambulance, along with fairy lights reclaimed from old christmas trees that shed their needles and needless to say no one was going to be needing them any time soon.
The music that plays is swing, but the record skips and the plate revolves too slowly, so instead it's a distorted, almost demented sounding thing.
The lawn flamingo, mannequin, porcelain cat statue, baby doll, princess Diana commemorative plate, rubber frog, henry hoover and mug with a face on are the only customers the bar ever see's, but they all eat heartily and drink till they fall (are moved/pushed over).
She marches wide legged out of the kitchen, with a twitching rat between to pieces of newspaper.
He leans forward, scoops it off the plate, and although someone (she), who he can't quite now recall, once recommended he start at the head, he pops the tail end in and bites down.
She watches on, face in a gas mask, covered in ketchup, waiting to see if he likes what he eats...
He...
Smiles. A wide, rat bottomed smile.
The half rat betwixt newspaper finally let's go of life.
They laugh out loud, one gas masked, one rat mouthed, for what seems like a few seconds, but is actually a very, very, very long time.
Then the record stops.
And they quickly stop laughing.
The room, silent.
Together, in sync, at the same time, they slowly turn their heads.
Their, stood beside the stereogram... A man.
Mucho
Justin
