I stare at the packaging in my hand. Carrot cake?! Ha. No. How silly of me. Parrot Cake.

A lot has changed recently since God decided to show up and inform us of several things before disappearing again. Notably, vegetarians were wrong since it is actually vegetables that have feelings while animals, excluding humans and the less edible animals such as cats and dogs and other household pets, are insentient and, as a result, the notion of vegetarianism no longer exists. Everyone eats meat and solely meat. Hence the confusion at the concept of carrot cake. As if. Parrot out and out. I decide against it and place it back on the shelf. Where it belongs.

The shock subsides and I am ridden with a fever that only vegetables can cure. I walk up to the counter following the service and departure of the last costumer and, in front of an empty shop, speak in code to the shop assistant.

"Any...click click?"

"Ahem...you want...orange click-click? green click-click? Re..."

"Orange click-click. Please. Still caked in dirt preferably."

"Perhaps you should come up to my office where we can...ehhh..."

The shop assistant calls over a young girl by the name of Nicole. She is kindly asked to take duty of the register in his temporary absence and she is happy to oblige, relieved of her prior stock replenishment task. I am escorted passed the confectionary counter, passed the stand of budget, second hand DVDs of old and crap, unknown films and eventually passed the newspaper and magazine rack and led through a door (which read "authorised persons only") and up some tattered, disgusting looking stairs into a sizable office, reduced to only a few squared meters of space due to the quantities of stock inhabiting it.

"You want the orange click-clik with the green hat?"

"I do. Must we continue to speak in this horrible chit-chat?"

"No. I just enjoy it. You want carrots?"

"I do. How much a piece?"

"A buck each for the first three, two for each thereafter."

"That's a bit of an odd deal."

"Yeah. I got it wrong. Two bucks each for the initial three, a buck for each thereafter."

"Sounds fair. I'll take sixteen."

He starts bagging them in a bag that simply has "MEAT" scribed in the side of it. "Makes it unsuspicious" he sites. The fat, balding, grey idiot; a true picture of bad health. I open my wallet and pull out a twenty-two dollar note, a note recently introduced by the government for a laugh. Or a "big giraffe" in rhyming slang, now a widely and legally accepted language thanks to it's introduction for the same reasons which gave birth to the aforementioned newly born note. That's predominantly how the government works nowadays under the leadership of children. "For a big giraffe". The abolishment of agism now applies to every part of life and, consequently, you can now find toddles in bars and pensioners in nursery. Though, society still tends to frown upon the latter.

"What's a smart kid like you want with these vegetables anyhow? You know this could land you in a lotta trouble, right?" he audibly spews.

"I know this. I have my personal reasons for wanting them."

He continues to count out the goods, an act which takes an awful long time. It appears counting to sixteen is a difficult task which this man is not often faced with. Eventually, money and carrots are swapped. He hands me an application form for work.

"A cover. If anyone asks, you was up here asking about a job."

"Right." I say back, dawning a fetching, very smart suit which set me back a good few hundred dollars. I'm a professional footballer, earning thousands upon thousands per week, and it is horribly obvious to everyone, with the exception of this man, that applying for a job would be the last thing I'd be doing in this place. "Thanks."

We reverse the trail we'd walked only a few minutes prior before I made my exit, out into the beautiful snow which lay thick upon the ground and continued to fall from the sky with great pace and glamour. Barely a car was to be seen; the snow had been so thick for days that vehicles were locked in place. Even snow ploughs. Children are having snow ball fights and couples are walking, embracing the cold, linked. A sight from a Disney film. A postcard from heaven. I proceed homeward bound with a mind full of thoughts.

The suit I'm wearing. I had a meeting earlier with another team. They've expressed their desire to sign up my services for their team, and a fine team it is too. In the running for the title this year. Problem is, the wife and child are settled here. We're living close to be my parents and hers as well as our brothers and sisters and their families. Our child is attending a great school and is proving popular amongst his peers. Maybe once she hears the offer. The money. The house they'd like to buy us. The change of lifestyles. Vegetables may even be of such superior availability that she'd welcome the change. Though, I don't know why.

My thoughts refocus and now I'm thinking of our car. It's only seven months old and already I have a desire for a new one. A faster one. And my current car is already pretty fast. I want something black. Something classy.

The wheel is spun again and now I'm imagining our child all grown up. What he'll be. What he'll look like. I think he'll be a scientist of some sort. But a cool one. A scientist with groupies and glamour. A mixture of Patrick Swazye and Patrick Moore.

I get home to my humble bungalow and enter the front door. My wife is sitting on the cough grinning sheepishly.

"The little one's out at a friends" she says seductively. "He won't be back for a while."

I know exactly what she means. She takes me gently by the hand, my other hand couriering the sixteen carrots still, and leads me carefully and slowly to the bedroom, my eyes locked on her hips the entire journey. We reach the room and near the bed. She turns to me with an expression of sheer exhilaration. We bypass the bed and open the curtains together, and gaze at the wonder outside.

"Oh my..." I utter

Sixteen snowmen, each without a nose.