A.M.

It was that fluorescent light that makes you bleary just thinking about it: a white-yellow flickering world where no one sleeps. I looked down at my hand where I’d written your words, in the half-dark, with a failing biro. Your late-night craving list. My skin flashed with strange white blotches, and I could hardly read the words. MIX, I made out, and ICE CREAM. Biscuit mix maybe. My mind was still back in bed, warm, covered-over bed: not here in this zombie market. It was two in the morning, and people still milled happily in the aisles. I wondered what their stories were. Shift workers? Millionaires? I held open the door to the ice cream fridge and stared until my eyes went numb. Above me, the upbeat fuzz of AM radio. And even I saw the irony of this frequency.