END OF THE WORLD SAINSBURY'S

Few things suggest that the apocalypse might have happened, better than a late night trip round our local Sainsbury's. I went tonight, just to pick up a new folder and some plastic sleeves to put all my house documents in.

For some reason, they've arranged this lonesome group of survivors in the entrance lobby. This forlorn collection of stragglers could only have come together in a desperate attempt to stay alive, to throw on whatever warm clothes they could find from the back of the store. Now they stand there ominously like frozen aliens from a chilly, faceless planet.

It's a cold and desperate world, the late night supermarket. Televisions blare down the aisles at nobody and sleepwalking shelf-stackers push trolleys full of empty boxes across the squeaky floor. The deli counter, normally a hub of activity, is dark and foreboding; the bakery section, by day so rich with the smell of freshly baked pastries, is stripped of all but a few stale doughnuts and sorry-looking finger rolls. I start imagining myself ripping open the cellophane and wolfing down the hunks of dry bread as the acid rain tumbles onto the corrugated roof of my fallout shelter.

Man, I really need to tone down the imagination sometimes.

Anyway, there were other customers in there tonight, besides me and the uniformed box-pushing zombies. I think I saw some students, messing about with a trolley. A guy with spiky hair was being loud and 'hilarious' while a pretty girl looked embarrassed, which he seemed to actually be interpreting as 'impressed'. His other friend was scowling at him, while the spiky-haired buffoon horsed around the tea and coffee aisle in the trolley.

I stood there examining the boxes of Assam and Earl Grey and 'herbal infusions' feeling old and wise, rather like an owl listening to a chattering of starlings, remembering something distant, untouchable and from another time in another city... I expect older people feel the same about us sometimes.

Anyway, I made it to the checkout and had the usual one way conversation with the till. The news is that tonight I did not 'use any of my own bags' thank you very much, and yes I did swipe my nectar card (the wrong way round at first, then upside down and then finally at the correct orientation) and it was eventually 'accepted' which is always reassuring.

As I got back to the car, I realised that once again, I'd gone through the whole experience without actually speaking to, smiling at, or connecting with a single real person. I threw the folder onto the passenger seat and climbed in. Maybe this is the end of the world, after all? I thought to myself, When we all stop talking to each other...

I drove home and gave my Mum a hug.