green oranges

Juice dribbles slowly down his chin as he grins at me. Otherwise motionless, he carefully sucks every last piece of the fruit without breaking his smiling gaze. Sparkly eyes above a sun faded yellow football shirt. The dark ‘Fly Emirates’ slogan yells silently from his chest.

Casting the skin aside he finally turns and rearranges the baskets on his bicycle, crammed full with sweet green oranges to sell in town.

‘Fly Emirates’ is emblazoned across his back as well. This sinew limbed cyclist farmer, advertising one of the richest airlines in the world. His shirt has already travelled thousands of miles more than he ever will. I doubt he even has a passport, let alone anything more tangible than distant dreams of flight. 

I buy a sweet green orange and as the juice dribbles down my chin, i dream of standing on a london street and seeing ‘sweet green Tanzanian oranges’ emblazoned across a grinning businessman’s chest.