Notes From a Tired Town

The high street — “fucked” I think the word is. Shops in small towns have been Jeff Bezos-ed out of existence; loss lead into a meek oblivion. I found myself languishing in one shop that had, in a cockroachian manner, survived the apocalypse. This shop profiteered from the sale of items that can only be described as things you would typically never need, except precisely one time in your life, at which point you will inevitably be standing within thieving distance of it. Entering, I began my question to the man behind the counter “do you sell…” and I swear at this point, he was already gesturing to the “…batteries”. Had this veteran cultivated a keen sense of what item each customer most required or desired? Or did I look like someone who needed batteries? What does that even look like?

Amidst my musing about whether I was coming across as low energy, a feeling edged towards me from the back of the shop, tentative but determined, like a dog eyeing up a sausage on your dinner plate. It didn’t impose, but just stood next to me, not with a particular point to prove, only the tacit hope to be seen. It was a surreal sense of forlorn in a long since abandoned uncanny valley. It is without enough of a reason to exist, yet, there it is. Still going. Still purring like a 20-year-old potato sack of a cat that rarely rises from its sofa yet refuses to die almost as a matter of principle, or spite.

One dead pub (but with a passable pool table) and a suspect nail salon later, I stood in front of the godmother of the standard street — hairdressers. I heard once that hairdresser was number one in the pantheon of “happiest jobs”. You get to chat with people, see immediate results, and, depending on your level of skill (or sadism), give someone a boost to their self-esteem. Orchestral musician was the lowest — something about immense demands on technical virtuosity while getting little individual credit. I often think about this when walking past hairdressers, which at this point, pop like little hopeful islands in a sea of vape shops in many working class towns.

I thought, for a second, this is a fairly future-proof job. But robots are already performing operations on people. Taking the weight off people’s follicles is hardly a stretch for them. So hairdressers are screwed too. We’re all screwed. Screwed by things that, themselves, will likely need to be screwed. This town is tired, being pulled through the motions by a vague allegiance to what it ought to be doing, or ought to be. It was once that. It was that in many tales I’ve heard. I should wish to visit it again in my grandparents’ stories, but it’s a door that’s closing.

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