• It still seems to be a long time until I no longer need food, water or air, and here I am in the foyer of the supermarket, an empty wire trolley idling beneath my imperceptibly trembling fingers. The light is bright, and the smell is of nothing at all. My mind is blank. There is a route to be followed: straight ahead, turn right then right again, travelling aisle by aisle until (I am planning ahead) I end up in the wines, beers and spirits. My experience in these matters tells me that I will have run out of money by then, unless I am careful. I will have to be careful.
    But almost immediately, things start to go wrong. Here I am, transfixed by the twitching red muscles in the meat aisle. This isn't very good. I take a deep breath and move away. Nothing to see here. There is the rattle of teeth, of fingernails, bones, in the cardboard cereal packets, sloshings of lumpy fluids in jars and tins, the muffled howls of the doomed. I jerk my head away from the cans of 'processed meats', the hanks of hair in the salad bags.
    In the frozen food cabinets; plastic sacks of severed fingers, clingfilm stretched fetishistically over pale limbs, bent double and tied with white string, blood pooling darkly in the polystyrene trays.
    Death warrants - signed, but with the name left blank - amongst the Sunday papers. The zone behind the translucent doors.
    I can't do it. Looking determinedly straight ahead, I remove a bottle (whiskey? vodka? I am unsure) and stand in line at the checkout. Do I have a loyalty card? I stare in fear at my interrogator.
    "Yes," I whimper. "I mean, no." /////

    at the same ringroad supermarket
    I am queuing at my nearest out-of-town supermarket when an unpleasant scene begins to develop. Three shop assistants haul a muscular but dead young bullock out from behind the translucent flaps that guard the inner sanctum of the store, and lay it on the tiles in the tights, socks, and toothcare aisle. Another assistant emerges with several large knives, and the four of them stand around the carcass as if awaiting silent instructions. As one, they flash their knives and one of them makes a large cut in the hide of the bullock. Another slices deftly at the neck area, while the third and fourth make incisions around the jaw. The two assistants nearest the head lay their now bloody knives on the clean tiles, and, with visible effort, insert their fingers into the gashes they have just made. They begin to pull at the thick, hairy skin of the bullock, tugging hard until the flesh begins to pinkly emerge. They pull and pull, and the hide slides back over the jaw. As the skin comes back, to my horror, the bullock's eyes begin to flicker. At the moment the hide rips back over the eyes, they widen, and the bullock staggers to its feet. The assistant pull harder and harder, but the bullock charges away towards the delicatessen counter, its face flapping wildly around its flayed skull. I am close to fainting, although I cannot, as I have been queuing at the checkout for what seems like an age. At last, my items are scanned and I pay for them, my Visa card shaking in my hand.