Donna stayed close to the wall, pointing her small digital camcorder towards the supermarket entrance. Her good friend, Sarah, walked up beside her.
“What you up to then, Donna?” she asked, before biting into a newly purchased sandwich.
She turned to her and smiled. “Let me explain.”
Two days previously, Donna had been walking out of the supermarket, a bag for life in each hand.
She had noticed a badly parked Nissan Micra, with a middle-aged, balding man sat in the driving seat. He was staring ahead blankly, with dried blood under his nose.
“Are you okay?” she asked him, bending down at his open window.
Without turning to her, he said “I have just worked out the meaning of life.” He had said it in a rather unenthusiastic way, considering.
After some hesitation, she asked, in a slow and deliberate voice; “Is it not good news then?”
He shrugged. “It is so-so.”
“Oh. I see...” Before she could ask anything else, other people started to gather and her voice was lost amongst them.
“Oh yeah,
that guy.” Sarah nodded, stuffing the last of her sandwich into her mouth. “Is that still going on? Hasn’t he dehydrated yet or anything?”
“Exactly! He’s a fake, I know it!”
Sarah nodded slowly, in thought about the situation. “Wasn’t it in the Tesco car park across the road anyway?”
”Yeah. But he’s not going to go for his dinner there is he? They all know him -”
She suddenly saw the man, as he walked out of the supermarket. “There he is, the
git!”
Donna frantically zoomed in, capturing him as he washed down the last of his crisps with a bottle of water. As he strolled across to put the empty bottle in the bin, he noticed the camera. After a few seconds hesitation, he started to run away.
“Well done! Caught red handed!” Sarah laughed. “But how does he get out of the car without anyone noticing?”
She turned the camera off. “Let’s go and have a look!”
They both walk off towards the Tesco.
”Maybe he’s the new David Blaine or something?” Sarah suggested.
”Maybe.”
They walked for several seconds in silence, before Sarah spoke again. “What do you think the meaning of life is, Donna..?”
“Hmm, well I don’t know what it is for everyone but I know what it is for this guy.”
”Really?”
“Yep. Fame. All 15 minutes of it.”
