164 Smelly Business

Samir said goodbye to Sunil a few minutes after he'd finished his cocoa. They'd discussed everything they had to discuss, and he could see there was no refill coming. There was no point in hanging around.

The next item on Samir's agenda for this particular Earth day was seeing Paul Leduc, the supermarket owner. He'd agreed to deliver food, food he'd imported from the New World, to Leduc's store. He'd agreed to deliver so much that it had to be broken into instalments, and the first instalment was due at the beginning of the month.

Samir loaded five kilos of fruit and vegetables into his backpack, and put another five kilos of dried fish on the rear carrier of his bicycle. This was nearly half of all the food in the storeroom; he really couldn't take any more. He wheeled his bicycle down the path leading to his house and onto the lane that led to the main road.