By Hayley Morgan (@writeonmorgan)
My family joined the queue shortly before I turned eight. That was seven years ago now, and we’re still in it.
Hundreds of Fridays have come and gone since, seven of them occurring on the sacred, foretold date, but none were Black Friday. In all that time, we have travelled no further than a mile, and only that because so many pass on in line. My little sister was born in this queue and she’ll probably die here, too.
Seven years ago, Dad was tempted by a 99% sale at White Goods, a supermegastore that sells absolutely everything including prefab luxury houses. The profits from the sale of our shanty shack would just about cover the down payment on a Family Luxurama 3000, or so said the flashy ad-men who bought it from us. The rest would be staggered on layaway for over a hundred and fifty years. THE FUTURE EVERYONE CAN AFFORD. All we had to do to claim it was camp out and wait our turn. But by the time we arrived in Newtown, the front of the line was some hundred miles beyond the horizon. Now, we cannot see the end of it. We have nothing to return to. Nowhere else to go.
Every Friday, we rise before dawn, hastily gathering our cardboard boxes and plastic bags and rusted shopping trollies. Every Friday, the same pointless exercise.
“Today is the one,” says Dad, straightening a tie made from used napkins. “Today is it. I can feel it.”
I roll my eyes.
“You said that last week, and the week before, and—”
Mom pokes me with her calloused elbow, worried brown eyes shining through cracked-glass spectacles.
Dad can never give up hope. We have to keep up the charade for his sake. It was Dad’s decision to join the queue and so he carries the burden of its hardship, its longevity.
“Yeah,” I mumble, grudgingly, “uh, me too. Today’s the day.”
We live in line, in a tiny tent of patched anoraks and tarp between two steel barriers, vulnerable to night-thieves and the elements. It is never quiet. It is never comfortable. We are never happy. You wouldn’t think it possible for people to live in such conditions, but they can and they do.
Up ahead, a memorial is being held for the old dear who croaked in her sleep last night. They’re singing hymns mixed with show tunes and advertising jingles. I hum along, clutching the one-eyed plush bear I inherited from Billy, the kid who used to stand behind me. He died during the last cold winter and the urban wolves took him, but they left his bear to me.
No point grieving in this dark world, and I’ve no feelings left to give anyway.
We have forgotten ourselves, if we ever had selves to forget.
We are educated by the old newspapers that swirl around us like ghosts. There are stories about looters and cannibal killers and wolves in clothes. I don’t know the full reasoning behind it, but I think it has something to do with the war that started over that terrible movie. Dad says you should never believe what you read, even though he bought into what he was told by two strangers on his doorstep.
Armed guards appear, as they always do, to conduct the crowd into an excitable rabble. Music sounds in the far-far-distance, mixed with alien-sounding city sirens. We sing and dance and chant and pray.
For a moment, I get caught up in it. I start to believe. It is the same every week. Despite myself, I cannot resist hoping. But the sky soon turns dark and our dreams are crushed to dust. The music stops.
“Never mind bub, never mind,” says Mom, as my sister starts to cry. Poor Lol. She’s only four and even she knows Black Friday isn’t coming. “We’ll be okay. We’re tough as nuts. Come on now… I’ll heat us up some beans on the dishplate.”
We pitch our tents and deckchairs back in the grooves we have carved. As the red rain starts to fall, we shelter under broken umbrellas, trying to light fires. People are crying. Some of them will self-murder tonight. They always do. Saturday is always the bleakest day of the week.
Dad is trembling, staring at the dirt.
“I don’t… I can’t…”
For a moment, I see it reflected back at me: the truth. He knows we’re doomed, too. Underneath it all. But maybe all the world is doomed. We have nothing else now but our empty beliefs.
“It’s alright, Dad,” I lie. “Next week will be Black Friday. I have a feeling.”
He nods, slowly, and I smile without my eyes.
The wolves are watching, waiting as we are waiting.
Six days must pass before we feel the faint, intoxicating flicker of hope again. It is the kind of hope born only from the most desperate and hopeless delusions.
Hundreds of Fridays have come and gone since, seven of them occurring on the sacred, foretold date, but none were Black Friday. In all that time, we have travelled no further than a mile, and only that because so many pass on in line. My little sister was born in this queue and she’ll probably die here, too.
Seven years ago, Dad was tempted by a 99% sale at White Goods, a supermegastore that sells absolutely everything including prefab luxury houses. The profits from the sale of our shanty shack would just about cover the down payment on a Family Luxurama 3000, or so said the flashy ad-men who bought it from us. The rest would be staggered on layaway for over a hundred and fifty years. THE FUTURE EVERYONE CAN AFFORD. All we had to do to claim it was camp out and wait our turn. But by the time we arrived in Newtown, the front of the line was some hundred miles beyond the horizon. Now, we cannot see the end of it. We have nothing to return to. Nowhere else to go.
Every Friday, we rise before dawn, hastily gathering our cardboard boxes and plastic bags and rusted shopping trollies. Every Friday, the same pointless exercise.
“Today is the one,” says Dad, straightening a tie made from used napkins. “Today is it. I can feel it.”
I roll my eyes.
“You said that last week, and the week before, and—”
Mom pokes me with her calloused elbow, worried brown eyes shining through cracked-glass spectacles.
Dad can never give up hope. We have to keep up the charade for his sake. It was Dad’s decision to join the queue and so he carries the burden of its hardship, its longevity.
“Yeah,” I mumble, grudgingly, “uh, me too. Today’s the day.”
We live in line, in a tiny tent of patched anoraks and tarp between two steel barriers, vulnerable to night-thieves and the elements. It is never quiet. It is never comfortable. We are never happy. You wouldn’t think it possible for people to live in such conditions, but they can and they do.
Up ahead, a memorial is being held for the old dear who croaked in her sleep last night. They’re singing hymns mixed with show tunes and advertising jingles. I hum along, clutching the one-eyed plush bear I inherited from Billy, the kid who used to stand behind me. He died during the last cold winter and the urban wolves took him, but they left his bear to me.
No point grieving in this dark world, and I’ve no feelings left to give anyway.
We have forgotten ourselves, if we ever had selves to forget.
We are educated by the old newspapers that swirl around us like ghosts. There are stories about looters and cannibal killers and wolves in clothes. I don’t know the full reasoning behind it, but I think it has something to do with the war that started over that terrible movie. Dad says you should never believe what you read, even though he bought into what he was told by two strangers on his doorstep.
Armed guards appear, as they always do, to conduct the crowd into an excitable rabble. Music sounds in the far-far-distance, mixed with alien-sounding city sirens. We sing and dance and chant and pray.
For a moment, I get caught up in it. I start to believe. It is the same every week. Despite myself, I cannot resist hoping. But the sky soon turns dark and our dreams are crushed to dust. The music stops.
“Never mind bub, never mind,” says Mom, as my sister starts to cry. Poor Lol. She’s only four and even she knows Black Friday isn’t coming. “We’ll be okay. We’re tough as nuts. Come on now… I’ll heat us up some beans on the dishplate.”
We pitch our tents and deckchairs back in the grooves we have carved. As the red rain starts to fall, we shelter under broken umbrellas, trying to light fires. People are crying. Some of them will self-murder tonight. They always do. Saturday is always the bleakest day of the week.
Dad is trembling, staring at the dirt.
“I don’t… I can’t…”
For a moment, I see it reflected back at me: the truth. He knows we’re doomed, too. Underneath it all. But maybe all the world is doomed. We have nothing else now but our empty beliefs.
“It’s alright, Dad,” I lie. “Next week will be Black Friday. I have a feeling.”
He nods, slowly, and I smile without my eyes.
The wolves are watching, waiting as we are waiting.
Six days must pass before we feel the faint, intoxicating flicker of hope again. It is the kind of hope born only from the most desperate and hopeless delusions.