I Identify as a Surfboard: Last Words of a London Shelf

Walking through Brockley in South East London this morning, my eyes were drawn to the rubbish that was collecting - but not being collected - near the station.  However, this wasn’t what grabbed my attention – it was the street art (graffiti, vandalism – what you will) that adorned the remnants of a piece of shelving that had been unceremoniously bound and dumped by the bins.  It must have looked so forlorn that a would-be Banksy took (no more than a few seconds, in my judgement) the time to spray a pithy little message in the words of the abandoned shelf itself.   The message? “I identify as a surfboard”.

Now it was early in the morning, but I was struck by the sheer pathos of this plaintive proclamation.  What also hit me was the angsty anthropomorphism of the face painted atop of the message.  The existential distress bore all the hallmarks of Munchian despair. What hopes had been dashed? What dreams of sun and sea-spray had been denied?  Here was a humble shelving unit, condemned by society to a life holding tins of baked beans and chopped tomatoes, finally finding the courage to articulate its authentic self in its last gasps of existence before its inevitable appointment with the crusher at the recycling plant.

"I identify as a surfboard" it declared, with a spartacan (have I just invented a new adjective?) confidence that reality stubbornly refused to endorse. As commuters hurried past towards the station, I wondered how many had paused to consider the shelf's predicament. Had any offered words of encouragement? Had anyone suggested Brighton or Bognor or even Bondi? Or was this yet another example of modern society's inability to listen to the voices of the marginalised supermarket shelving community?

Eventually I moved on, leaving the shelf to contemplate its fate alone. Yet its message lingered with me all day – perhaps because I had nothing better to do… But perhaps we are all, in our own way, shelves identifying as surfboards: yearning for adventure while being fundamentally designed for storage. Or, maybe, I should try harder to stop overthinking in the mornings.