Aisle-Land Conflict

As the growth of corporate dominance continued, the larger and stronger corporations devoured the weaker ones and a steady process of amalgamation meant that fewer and fewer corporations now existed. At the same time, they also controlled more and more of the means of production. The soil became polluted and infertile to the point where all food production began to take place indoors, inside gargantuan hydroponics factories which were constructed like fortresses. It seemed to spell the start of the next level of conflict.

The supermarkets became the sum total of people's lives. Not only were they a primary source of their consumer happiness but they in effect also became political leaders, law enforcement, healthcare and ultimately, international fighting forces who declared their own sovereignty. They faced no revolt from what had now become ‘the old guard'.

These self-determined states became known as the Loyalty states. In a strange reordering of capitalist/communist ideologies the supermarkets owned the means of production, and also in effect owned the population. The wars were not about territories as such, as where a person lived out their subservient lives was of no interest to the Great Chains; it was about loyalty to the store. The evolution of the supermarket had made loyalty the top prize.

It was loyalty that kept this new design for modern living alive. No food was available unless it came from the aisle of a supermarket. There was no monetary exchange, just an augmented barter system whereby the carrying of your mandatory Loyalty Card meant that your own production line, your progeny, would be absorbed into the personnel ranks of the nearest megastore.

Everyone worked for one of the Great Chains. Working meant you had access to the activity of consuming in the ever-diminishing prescribed leisure time - and it also entered you into the weekly Loyalty Lottery. Although the prize in a similar folly of days past would have been quite different; the Chains now used it to conscript anyone over the age of 12 into their army.

As the futile and bloody battles for customer loyalty continued, the war became a product of its own. On the frontline, enormous war machines sped through red mist, ingesting the distended, bloody, pulpy corpses strewn metres high. Once inside the belly of these mobile metal beasts the bodies would be broken down by a special blend of digestive acids, where after some secret recipe stir-in sauce would be added; and then whole thing was boiled down until all nutritional value was removed. It was subsequently put into tins and sent back to the frontlines to sustain the troops. Supplies also left the frontlines and made it the shelves ‘back home'. Show your support for Our Boys, by buying them back.

The Corner Shop Militia were a rag-tag bunch of fighters who could only ever aspire to the High Street at best, and had no hope of reaching the out-of-town-Megastore. This rang truer as each day the out-of-town slowly became The Town. When put to battle, these rogue units, the small and ineffectual last bastion of independent trading, were almost instantly disposed of by the forces of the Great Chains. The war machines chewed them up and processed them along with the rest of the dead.

The bloodbath continued and the death toll began reading like an old Lottery winning of yore; when it involved winning cash, not conscription. People could no longer remember a world that was any different. No one turned their head, or batted an eyelid as their kids went off to the workhouses, or as their Loved Ones entered the battlefield. The war seemed like it would never end, but to people who couldn't distinguish between a beginning, a middle and an end, that would never be a source of concern.

I, however, not only knew how this age of de-humanisation came about but I could also see an end in sight. This was because I would engineer it. I was a member of the faceless upper echelons of the Walmart clan and my superior technical skills meant I maintained a position of some authority. Perhaps it was simply a genetic defect that enabled me to think differently to others I worked alongside, but my position in the Chain meant I had extensive knowledge of its weak points, and how best to exploit them.

The process of elimination had started in the early days of the Chains, back in the 20 th Century. As the mergers and hostile takeovers went on, the world was left with a diminishing number of corporations. Fewer oppressors - fewer targets. It was a matter of biding time until there was one reigning champion of the war. Let the Great Chains slay each other out of existence by cutting the throat of the competition. When the dust over the senseless slaughter had settled, it would be the moment to strike. In a supremely computerised and commoditised world it would be easy to pull the plug. It was one thing that was never implemented into the design – human discord, rebellion from within, a spanner in the works. Irreversible damage to the one victorious Chain would mean that we could be free again; even though I only had a slender grasp on the notion of freedom, as I lived in a world without any point of reference. It would be an opportunity to reclaim the means of production and begin to replenish the soil.

However, I had skimmed over a glaring flaw in my own plan; that one day, I myself, would win the Loyalty Lottery and be forced to demonstrate my loyalty by joining the fray at the frontlines. And so it transpired: My Loyalty Card number was one of this week's winners and I was immediately ordered to leave work before I could engineer a single discrepancy. Although I still believed in a life beyond the supermarkets, I was not to be a catalyst for their demise.