Tannoy

Have you ever wondered why supermarkets seem so ominous when you are little?

The long cold aisles stretch into the distance, and the metal trolley you are holding onto could be the trolley of anyone, followed quite by mistake as you are distracted by a pot of toffee yoghurt.

Sometimes the flat voice of a supermarket person intones from the ceiling ‘Could the parents of Bob, that’s Bob, please make their way to Customer Services’, and you know that Bob turned the wrong way after the corner stand with the taster crackers, and became Lost.

You know that if you were to become Lost, you should go to Customer Services and explain clearly and calmly that your adult is missing. But if you can’t find your adult by yourself, how are you supposed to find Customer Services? They could be anywhere, and you are half convinced that they aren’t even real. So you must be very careful to avoid being Lost.

Being Lost is enormous, because it makes you so small. You can only escape after wandering at least three times around the frozen food section, crying a little more with each circumnavigation as the aisles get longer and your notion of direction is firmly disintegrated. And it’s frightening, because if you can’t become un-Lost quickly enough, the shadows of previous lost Losts might eat you, and then you would be stuck forever in an abandoned confectionery aisle while the metal trolleys walked past all by themselves, and the ceiling asked for Bob to come back to Customer Services.