Nelson Galaxy

During my weekly shop, at Sainsbury’s in Whitechapel, I struggled to the checkout with a basket full of wine, carrots and oranges. All payment points were busy but I settled on the one which appeared to be the fastest moving.

However, I did not notice that I had situated myself behind a very old and frail woman who was taking her long sweet time packing her jars of pickled onions and tins of spam and ravioli. I offered to help but she cowered and raised her arms in fearful protest, as though I was an evil predatory phantom reaper preparing to cart her bent soul off to hell.

She was so slow I slipped through the next two stages of evolution.

I noticed the checkout girl smiling at me sweetly. She was a stunning Asian beauty in her early twenties. Although dowdy in her uniform her face gave her away as being something special, huge long-lashed dark eyes and big red lips and a complexion so perfect I wanted to use it as butter. I goofily smiled back.

Her eyes sparkled as she nodded towards the old lady and amiably said, “‘Hell is other people,’ as Jean-Paul Sartre, the French existentialist philosopher, once said in his play ‘Huis Clos’. Or to quote the original: ‘l’enfer, c’est les autres.’”
“Huh . . . yeah, that’s exactly right, that’s what I always say. Wasn’t Sartre famously once a goalkeeper?” I ignorantly asked.
“No, that’s Peter Shilton. Do you have a Nectar card?”

I paid and left, contemplating the brilliant metaphysical and existential debates I was to have with my new beautiful friend. I bet that she looks good on the dance floor.