The Uncooperative

 

Stacking shelves, weird smells would pass me. Cannabis and the stench of alcohol. Familiar faces strolling in to buy the night’s readymade pizzas and rustler burgers.

That was the Co-Operative shop.

I used to hate sorting the freezer section. Not only was I a vegetarian and used to hate throwing away the turning-green chicken pieces but also, I always had cold hands, even in the summer.

The summer was the worst actually... Everyone coming in to buy their ice-creams and sweets.

Whilst I always had cold hands.

Look! Thirty degrees outside and I have cold hands!

All for £4.67 an hour. Tut.

It’s typical when you’re fifteen, they don’t think you have dreams to save for.

But I had one. Well, me and my best friend had one.

Our dream was to go to the festival. The first music festival we had ever been to see our favorite bands. Biffy Clyro, Red Hot Chilli Peppers, King of Leon. All the male rock stars most fifteen-year-old loved. And it was all already planned. We would sneak the alcohol in our sleeping bags, wrap it up like a sausage roll and even better, we would tell our parents we were staying at a friend’s place for the weekend. All that was left was to buy the tickets.

And that’s why my hands were cold in that shop.

My blood only circulated around that dream.