Window Shopping

It's been a long time coming, couldn't figure how the hell to end it. In the end, i decided on a departure from my normal tangents..

Thanks to Jammie for Lightning, Speaker, Pillbox Hat & Fir tree..



Window Shopping.

The high street buzzed with Saturday shoppers. Bargain-seeking housewives with noisy offspring, elderly couples holding everyone up as they potter about and randomly stop for no apparent reason, their prattle drowned out by the shouts of the market stall holders hawking their cheap imported wares. In amongst all the 'normo's', Siobhan and Clarissa barged past everyone to get to no-where in particular, swearing randomly as they went.

"Oh this is really pissing me off, Sibs." yelled the shorter, fatter one to her lanky companion, who was currently held up by an old woman gazing at a comfy cardigan in the window of Quality seconds.

"Ah... crap... Hang on C, I'm just... hang on.." 'Sibs' sidestepped the old woman and trod on the toes of a small child as she passed. The child's mother glared at her as the child burst into tears. "Oh... sorreee" she mumbled incoherently as she caught up with her fellow rebel outside Woolworths.

"So, where d'ya wanna go C?" drawled Siobhan, chewing her gum in a hopefully aggressive way. She checked her make-up in the shop window. Her face was mainly black and white, a stark message to the oppresive regimes of the establishment, which mainly amounted to her incredibly wealthy parents. Clarissa was a schoolfriend who she'd never really managed to get rid of. Truthfully, she liked C, as she was pretty much her only friend, and imitation was supposed to some kind of flattery. Clarissa checked her make-up too, it was pretty much the same, but C hadn't got around to dying her hair purple as Sibs had done. Pale face, black edges and the entire Emo look somehow didn't quite gel with her frizzy ginger hair, but she was happy as long as she had people like Sibs to tell her she looked ok.

"Ummm.. wanna go to Top Shop? My cousin's mate says they've got this great new line.." Sibs cut across her.

"Too conformist, I've told ya. Never go into a shop that has anything from the top 10 playing out of the speakers. They're trying to turn us all into clones, all wearing the same outfits and listening to the same crap. No-one tries to be an individual anymore. Not like us..." She nodded moodily as a familiar pair of identically-garbed creatures of the night passed in the opposite direction. "See? we're making a statement. We don't follow normal clothing patterns". Clarissa sighed. That line was lifted straight from Kevin & Perry. Sibs did this a lot, tried to be a rebellious type, but in the end, just displayed her general ignorance. Clarissa kept her tongue. It was quite fun listening to Sibs talk sometimes, she'd even started writing some of her less-intelligent musings down at home.

They came up to a recently-vacated bench under a young fir tree, no doubt planted to give some colour to the grey facade of the buildings lining the street. There was a hot dog stall at the end of a raised planter. Siobhan reached into her pocket and pulled out a tenner.

"Here, C, get us both a couple of hot dogs or something, I'm bloody starving." Clarissa sighed again, but did as she was asked. Another benefit of having Sibs as a mate - she was generous to a fault. Clarissa joined the long queue, tutted at the undetermined waiting time, pulled out her mobile phone and started jabbing at the keypad.

Siobhan stretched out on the bench stretching her arms along the top of the back of the bench, giving sort-of threatening glares to anyone they even looked like they wanted to take the weight off their feet. Looking at the queue, Clarissa hadn't moved an inch.

"Excuse me, dear, is that seat taken?" Siobhan jumped a foot in the air

"Jesus Christ! You scared the bloody life out of me! What'tya do that for?" The little old lady's smile didn't falter at the tone.

"Oh, my dear, I'm sorry about that. Would you mind if I sat there? My hip's giving me gyp again." Siobhan looked her up and down, she was wearing a pink suit with a skirt far too short for her years, and topped it off with a stupid little pillbox-hat. She was leaning on a walking stick and, although smiling, had a pained look in her eyes.

"Oh, well, I was waiting... Um.. yeah, sure.." She shuffled to one end of the bench and the woman sat down with a grateful sigh. She placed her heavy shopping bag beside her and sat back. Siobhan was pointedly looking in the opposite direction to the woman 'don't talk to me, don't talk to me, don't talk to me...' she thought, Clarissa was not much further along. She caught her eye and gave the internationally recognised shrug of general 'what's happening?'. Clarissa shrugged back and pointed at the old woman at the front of the queue, who seemed to be paying for a cup of tea with pennies. Siobhan sat back down in her seat and exhaled noisily.

"We never seem to be in a hurry, do we dear?" Siobhan cast a furtive glance out of the corner of her eye. 'Oh god, she's talking to me, isn't she? At least she isn't.. yes, she's offering me a sweet'. Siobhan gave a non-commital grunt as means of a response. "Would you like a bonbon?' She sank further into her section of the bench, trying to make herself invisible.

"No thanks" she muttered, head bowed as low as she could into her chest. If she gave off an air of indifference,maybe she wouldn't..

"Well, you see everyone these days, all rushing around, no time to take in what's around themselves. When you get to our age, You've done your rushing. We just want to take it easy".

"Bit selfish" Siobhan surprised herself by responding.

"Oh, you do speak. And why would you call us selfish?" Arms still folded across her chest, Siobhan sat up a little.

"Well, you might want to take it easy, but people have got places to go. You get in the way". The old lady observed her for a second.

"We have places to go too, you know. I ask you, what destination was so important that you had to barge past so many people? This bench? That burger van? You might be young now, but I'd advise you to slow down a bit. You're wasting your youth. Trust me on this Siobhan". She held her bag of sweets a little higher and poked around inside, a small smile in the corner of her mouth betrayed her supposed nochalance.

"How do you know my bloody name?" Siobhan was giving her her full attention now. "Who are you? Have you been following me? What do you want me for?" The old lady chuckled gently and placed the bag of sweets back into her straw bag.

"I don't want you for anything, my dear. I haven't been following you at all, and I know your name, because you and your friend at the burger van were shouting at each other at the top of your voices in your haste to get to this rather dull bench. I doubt there isn't a person in this street that doesn't know your and your friend Clarissa's name. I'd also wager that they've all got a pretty shrewd idea of what kind of characters you both are too. I'm surprised you weren't deafened by the tutting" The indignation on the young girl's face emitted a radiation possibly hotter than the burger van's grill. She stood up, her face beetroot with adolescent rage

"Hang on, who the bloody hell do you think you are you old bitch? I can do what the fuck I like" Again, the woman didn't flinch at the tone.

"Yes, you can. I told you, you're young, but I'll tell you again, you have to slow down, or you'll dance yourself into an early grave, and everyone you know will think of how poorly you spent your years. Sit down, my dear. Please." Siobhan folded her arms and resumed her position on the bench, stoically looking away. She glanced at Clarissa, she was at the front of the queue and apparently hadn't noticed the shouting.

"Can I bore you with a little tale? When i was about your age I lost a very good friend. She wasn't the best of friends, in fact she could be a stubborn, selfish bitch herself sometimes, and she acted like the world owed her a favour. Stropping about all the time, pushing others around, barging through crowds, a lot like you, truth be told, no offence... well, not much." Siobhan huffed and folded her arms a little tighter. "But her family and friends loved her, and would you like to know what happened? She was struck by lightning. Simple as that. A bolt from the blue, so to speak." At these words, Siobhan instinctively looked up. it was a clear blue sky. She held herself closer. After a long pause, she spoke.

"Why are you telling me this? I'm nobody, I don't need a Mr Miyagi. There's thousands of kids like me." For the first time, she looked the old lady in the eyes and was instantly struck at how tired, yet indescribably familiar they were.

"You honestly believe you're nobody? See your friend there? She loves you more then you know. She might think you're a little predictable with too many movie quotes in your vocabulary, but she cares more for you than she'd ever say, and if you weren't there for her, she'd disappear into herself. It's not just you, Siobhan, don't take this for something it isn't. There's thousands of close friends who never tell each other how they really feel about each other.... and... then... then it's too late to say anything, because you grow up, or grow apart." Tears glistened in the old woman's eyes, and Siobhan felt deeply ashamed she didn't have a tissue to offer her. Suddenly, Clarissa was beside them, holding a ketchup-dripping hotdog in each hand, a bemused expression on her face as she beheld the spectacle of her rebellious Emo friend conversing tenderly with an old dear wearing an entirely inaproppriate outfit.

"Um.... Sibs? You... ok?" Siobhan looked at her friend and nodded. She turned to her elderly comapnion and placed a hand on her shoulder. She tried to speak but no words came. It wasn't a thought process that came easily to her. The old woman nodded and smiled.

"Don't you worry dear, I'm ok, it just does good to let it out. Remember that, don't keep it all bottled up. There isn't a problem you'll ever have that someone else hasn't already had, and overcome. Just.. remember what friends are actually for." She smiled at Clarissa "Now, didn't your friend there want to do something...?"

Siobhan stood up. Again, she was stumped for words. She settled for a timid 'Thanks', took her friend's arm (and one of the hotdogs) and walked away in the direction of TopShop.

A short while later, quite unexpectedly, there was an almightly bang as a white-hot bolt of lightning touched ground blasting apart a bench, where, several witnesses had sworn that a sweet old woman in a pink outfit had been sitting moments before, yet no-one could recall actually seeing her leave.