I am sandwich.
I wait.
I have waited for most of my life.
I was assembled in the kitchen of Birley’s café on the corner of Cannon Street and Walbrook in the City of London; I am best before the eighth of March, 2020. I am the sum of my parts. I am tuna which swam the North Atlantic, wheat that ripened in the swaying acres of Norfolk and olives scorched in the groves of Greece.
This morning we were fifty strong, but by mid-afternoon most of my generation had been taken. We wait, we happy few, upon the bright and spacious shelves of the display fridge, as customers come and go. They consider us and compare us to the other options around us. I am not afraid of being taken. I have been blessed with a longer shelf life than most. I do not know what awaits us beyond this fridge; none of us do. I know that my atoms will survive – atoms from the sea and the soil – and will become parts of something else. You can’t destroy atoms. Well, sometimes you can, I suppose, but that’s a bigger story.
My moment arrives. A Data Analyst from Bloomberg picks me up, pays for me in a hurry and suddenly we are out on the street. Vast constructions of steel and glass tower around us. We bustle through a crowd of other sandwich-eaters, into a foyer and then a lift. I am taken up and unpackaged on a cluttered desk. The last thing I see is a computer screen coming to life; it demands a password, then displays a small revolving symbol which reminds me of the doughnuts I knew at the café.
I am Data Analyst.
I wait.
I have waited for most of my life.
I was assembled in the kitchen of Birley’s café on the corner of Cannon Street and Walbrook in the City of London; I am best before the eighth of March, 2020. I am the sum of my parts. I am tuna which swam the North Atlantic, wheat that ripened in the swaying acres of Norfolk and olives scorched in the groves of Greece.
This morning we were fifty strong, but by mid-afternoon most of my generation had been taken. We wait, we happy few, upon the bright and spacious shelves of the display fridge, as customers come and go. They consider us and compare us to the other options around us. I am not afraid of being taken. I have been blessed with a longer shelf life than most. I do not know what awaits us beyond this fridge; none of us do. I know that my atoms will survive – atoms from the sea and the soil – and will become parts of something else. You can’t destroy atoms. Well, sometimes you can, I suppose, but that’s a bigger story.
My moment arrives. A Data Analyst from Bloomberg picks me up, pays for me in a hurry and suddenly we are out on the street. Vast constructions of steel and glass tower around us. We bustle through a crowd of other sandwich-eaters, into a foyer and then a lift. I am taken up and unpackaged on a cluttered desk. The last thing I see is a computer screen coming to life; it demands a password, then displays a small revolving symbol which reminds me of the doughnuts I knew at the café.
I am Data Analyst.
I wait.
I have waited for most of my life.
Tim Barlow Writes 
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