sunshine barcode

The stripes of sunshine, dappled and shade, they exist solely to remind you of the cost of things.

You want to know the cost, you want to hear prices, numbers, currency like threeseventynine and fiveeightyfour and nothingatallforthefirstyear. How about the real currency, like lies and deceit, like labour and children and baking sunshine?

You don't want to think about how much things really cost. You walk in that kind of light, evening late, when your whole shadow elongates until your sandals are like platforms, your toenails rise up like claws.

You drink soft drinks, branded, and write pretentious essays about the economy of sunlight. You don't want to know about the cost of things.

Your human rights have laid out your obligations - yourself and your children first, with other people way down the line. You would rewrite the charter, and obligate people above people. You would force the charity from people's hands if you could.

And they say, it's not giving if it's an obligation. You will be obligated to pay tax, to work in industry, to consume and reproduce and be happy and spend and believe and not question and toe the line and shut the fuck up and eat your Happy Meal but God (that charitable God, the one you pray to) forbid that you be obligated to selflessness.

The sunshine barcode covers your feet in blisters. You stop, apply plasters, leave your Pepsi can on the floor to rust in the bushes.

You don't think about the cost of things. You go home instead.