The Sad Demise of the Plastic Triceratops

 

The Sad Demise of the Plastic Triceratops

 

If ever I find myself in

need of a framed

print of an oil painting

of an eagle, a sad

gypsy girl or a New

York taxi, it’s here I’ll

come to buy it. The

price of a Cherokee

Nation dreamcatcher

these days is a

nightmare by the

way.

 

Gotta love the

machine that spits

out multi-coloured

plastic dinosaurs at a

Euro a growl. In it I

see a beacon guiding

six-year-olds to where

they can buy their

Taylor Swift mobile

phone covers.

 

I already have a

mobile phone cover

that broadcasts to the

world my love for an

old Bulgarian bloke

who played up front

for Barcelona thirty

years ago, and they’ve

sold out of

triceratopses. Even

the orange ones.

What’s the point? I

ask myself and a

dozing security guard.

 

Fifty shop windows

are filled with

mannequins

bedecked in skinny

clothes, none of

which would have

fitted me on any day

since I became

emotionally attached

to Arthur Guinness

fifty years ago.

 

The female

mannequins are

pointy in places and

semi-erotic. Perhaps

they can be bought

without their skimpy

Motörhead tee shirts

that people younger

than me might be

able to squeeze into

after a lifetime of

refraining from

Pringles and food.   

 

Equally bored

identical young sales

girls wearing skimpy

Motörhead tee shirts

with Pringles crumbs

all down the front are

standing behind

identical counters

from where they’re

sending messages to

each other on

identical mobile

phones to boast that

they’ve made a

solitary sale to an

identical customer.

 

I’m not going to look

at my mobile phone

because that will make

me as identical

as the rest of them. I

endeavour to be

identical to the

people who are not

identical. I can hear

whispers suggesting

that the old man with

no mobile phone

must be a terrorist

because he doesn’t

like Taylor Swift.

 

I’m searching for the

greengrocer’s and the

fishmonger’s shops. A

fruitless mission that

makes me think

something fishy is

going on in the world.

An overburdened faux

market stall tells me

that this year’s crop

of pink and green

confectionery made

from the crushed

vertebrae of pigs has

been a bumper one.

 

I can have anything I

want moulded into an

epoxy resin pendant

on a lightweight

heavy duty gold chain.

A crusty crustacean, a

grandchild’s first

haircut or a fragment

of a ceramic water

vessel from Thracian

times. Anything, that

is, except a plastic

triceratops. Not even

an orange one.

 

There’s a nice

bookshop so I’ve

bought a nice book of

poetry. There’s a nice

coffee shop so I’ve

bought a nice double

espresso. A nice

book plus nice coffee

equals peace and

love. I really like the

pattern on the saucer.

All the other coffee

drinkers are very

quiet. In fact, they’re

identically non-

existent.

 

The coffee shop

displays twenty-three

different types of

gateaux that all have

the identical taste of

squirty cream from a

can. They’re the

perfect dietary

supplement for those

shoppers who find

themselves too thin

for the skinny clothes

shown off by the

semi-erotic

mannequins posing in

the shop windows.

 

There’s nothing erotic

about a plastic

triceratops. That’s

probably why the

sales assistants don’t

have any. That’s

probably why they

appear to have

become extinct. Even

the orange ones. I’m

sure that Taylor Swift

would choose the

strawberry, banana,

marshmallow and nail

varnish flavoured

gateau.

 

I’m swerving to avoid

having the brand new

fragrance on a

cardboard stick

inserted in nostrils

left, right and centre

by a skimpy semi-

erotic identical

Motörhead fan as I

head for a door that

revolves in a hypnotic

way. Its creaky

mechanism murmurs

the words

you cannot leave,

you cannot leave,

you cannot leave.

 

And all the world

went grey, went grey,

for two wasted hours

in the mall today.

 

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Image:

It’s not my photograph and it’s not my triceratops, but I have permission from my son and grandson (the legal owners) to use it here.