Survival
Reflecting on this piece it was written before the EVENTS of you know what. It still makes me laugh in a an odd way as it was based on a lunchtime discussion with work friends when I worked in an office in Central London. How were we to know that this was going to happen.. for real....
It’s the first week into the global catastrophe that has wiped out most of the population apart from a small group of survivors at Croydon IKEA.
One group of survivors has commandeered the bedding and soft furnishings department. Their leader has stockpiled all of the IKEA meatballs. He is a big stocky man with a commanding presence and no one in his group of survivors would dare challenge him for more than their share of a meatball a day. Today he is on edge. There is something out there moving beyond the soft furnishings. He is holding a large pair of binoculars and scanning through a shower curtain. This man is survival expert Ray Mears.
From behind a futon, a nervous pair of eyes is hiding from him. It is a scout from the rival surviving party. He is a tall thin man with long dark hair, a goatee and the remains of a floral shirt which has been partially ripped to fashion a sweatband to tie back his long flowing hair. It is interior designer Lawrence Lewellen-Bowen and he is fighting for his life.
The rival survivors in the kitchens and garden section of IKEA are nervous. Their leader is a short thin man with a quick and tactical mind. For days they have survived only on IKEA Dime cake and the sickly sugar desert has quickened their nerves and rotted their teeth.
Lawrence looks across anxiously to their leader and nods. Their leader nods back. With the stub of an IKEA pencil he gouges out the sugar rotted stump of a molar tooth. Tonight they will bring the attack. Tonight they will dine on IKEA meatballs but for now they will wait for that right moment. This man is survivalist Bear Grylls.
Ray Mears refocuses his large binoculars and frowns.
Something is out there beyond the shower curtain.