Piker Press Banner
March 25, 2024

4 male adults

By Paul Tanner

4 male adults

one of them grabs some melons and starts bowling them down the aisle.
strike! he yells. strike!

one of them goes over to a girl scrubbing the floor
and stands behind her, thrusting his pelvis just short of her backside.

one of them comes over to where I'm aligning tins on a shelf
and knocks them off.

one of them opens a pack of biscuits and tucks in.
urgh! he spits the half-chewed mush out onto the floor.
fuckin raisins, fuckin gross!

they're not teenagers.
they're not drunk.
there's no needle marks on their arms.
they're not wearing straight jackets or foaming at the mouth
or carrying lanyards to show they're on some sort of spectrum
or being escorted by any carers.
they're just normal as fuck male adults
doing some "shopping."
they leave without buying anything,
but it's still "shopping"

and as I bend down to wipe away the biscuit mush,
the security guard catches my eye
so I can see him shrug:
the shrug says he couldn't do anything even if he wanted to
and even if he wanted to?

well, there was 4 of them.






Article © Paul Tanner. All rights reserved.
Published on 2021-09-20
Image(s) are public domain.
0 Reader Comments
Your Comments






The Piker Press moderates all comments.
Click here for the commenting policy.