I took the tram to Meadowhall. Twelve women got on, wearing raincoats, scarves covering their hair. That’s pretty common hereabouts.
They were collecting their husbands.
Three fell from escalators, succumbing to smooth, automated nausea. One died in French Connection, disconnecting at the checkout. One plummeted from the roof. One husband drowned in the moat; another, hoping to save him, got lodged at the bottom.
Some simply drifted off, before their food-court trays, plastic boundaries demarcating their precisely proportioned portions.
The last, now he took to howling, until he croaked that is.
“It’s more common than you think,” the women said.