One day, in one of the newsagents down Western Road, I came across a new strawberry flavour of fizzy soft drink Fanta. I have always liked strawberry flavoured drinks, so naturally bought a can, and then went to sit in Palmeira Square park to read ghost stories. The ring pull of the can was of the old fashioned sort, the type that was actually pulled off, leaving a tear shaped hole in the lid of the can to drink through. I hadn't seen one of these ring pulls for years, since childhood, and thought that everyone had stopped using them.
It was the loveliest drink ever, a veritable revelation of fizzy soft drink-ness.
I went back a day or two later to buy more strawberry Fanta, but they were gone. Perhaps I had the wrong shop? I checked all the shops, and I never found the strawberry flavour Fanta ever again. I have often wondered if it was some kind of summery hallucination that came to occupy my mind when I was spending too much time sitting in park reading obscure ghost stories and worrying about finding work.
