Cigarettes in dark cars.

Loose trolleys rumbling toward parked cars. Light pools make shadows for the boys to hide. Among this grid garden of orderly asphalt, remnants of broken groceries crackle underfoot. Save 40%. Price Match Guarantee™. Here's where we've come, here's where we're parked after all these years. We're not pretending this time, the clock has ticked on, the fuse burned down. The itchy screech of rust and friction welcomes my hands. Faster to shut it up. Push the trolley, fill the cage, empty the net that's snared us here. There's a list in some pocket. A naming of things, a tickboxery of boredom. Vanilla this, grams of that, a ripe squeeze of those. These are the makings of something, ingredients for a stewing suburban malaise. We used to play house: plastic tea sets and cordial, misters and visitors, talking curtain colours over crustless triangles. These must be grownup importances, the aspirational decisions we wanted to make one day. Now, the boy-men are hiding in their dark cars. Slurping coffee and ash, watching the traffic stutter past, waiting for a sign not neon. A trolley screech inches closer.