CH 1 (Part 1):The Department Store

Five to eleven. Inside, the place was charged with the empty hum of potential purchasing power. A tiled floor gleamed like melting snow. Rows of uniform colour co-ordinated shelves gave a blocky communist air, whilst outside a drooling, gluttonous crowd huddled together at the entrance waiting for the department store to open.

As soon as the two automatic doors parted company I threaded my way through the empty aisles with gay abandon. I am not a glutton. I do not capitulate to nuanced consumerism. Skip, skip, plié, skip, cabriole.   My heart is bursting with gleeful incandescence. I hear Smetana's Vltava playing from within, waterfalls and escalating energy. I approach the fine bone china section. 'Heaven, I'm in heaven'. Melodically please! I pick up a £75 cup from the Wedgewood brand. The Florentine range speaks to me. The halogen lights illuminate the paper thin china as I hold it up, indicating only the finest quality. Classic turquoise and earth brown gilding envelops the brilliant white cup on the outside, a thin ornate brown strip adorns the inner. And the shape. Modern cups are all monstrously oversized, urging us all to drink a little more, urinate more, flush more, wash more, spend more. The diminutive Florentine educates us; bypass speed and decision encouraging instead to take an appreciative sip from a dainty façade. Pressing my eyelids firmly shut I catalogue the image of the cup in my mind replete with a bold Courier font emblazoned across stating 'must have.'

By this time customers start to walk by me. My time alone has ceased. Not to worry. Onward. With a balletic slide I chasse towards the male fragrances, bee-lining for the Aqua di Parma. A man has not lived nor a woman yearned until the swimming pool blue tonic has been imparted through the nasal passage. Arancia di Capri induces feelings of Springtime in the synapses, buds bursting and flowering, pupils dilating, co-currently the physical system in the legs enter lockdown; knees weaken. I spray liberally over my neck. I do not use the tester. I am flourishing on this retail dance floor.

Reaching the escalators I observe two women a step up from myself. The younger is no more than 21 years old, wearing her brown hair tied up like a pretzel and a skirt that barely reaches the back of her knees. Perverse edification. Is there no English object secure from rash assault by the common man. Bank. It's in the bank, from whence it's return is hitherto unknown.

I reach the second floor where I head to the restaurant for my lunch date.