I peer at the cans of Red Bull, stacked as high as they’ll go above the Cokes. If they weren’t such an awkward shape I could get a load more of them into the space between the shelves … damn. I trot up to the tills, leaving my trolley behind, loaded with the drinks I can’t fit. I know they’ll be in any time now. It’s always straight off their break at 2.00 am, and who knows how many drinks they’ll need tonight. The towers fell exactly one week ago, but they seem busier every time. I scan the tills, squinting into the dark beyond the entrance.

‘The papers are here,’ Moe calls to me from a few aisles down. ‘Come out back, can you?’

I skip back down the aisle, arriving as Moe does, at the entrance to the storeroom. I’ve read so many newspapers, watched so much telly this week that I am actually starting to feel like the different person I’m supposed to be. Bit by bit, Carly’s disappearing, as I crowd my head with horror stories. I’ve stared and stared at the picture of a man, plunging to the ground perfectly in line with one of the towers. The Falling Man, suspended in upside-down perfection. Who was he? Nobody knows anything for sure, except for the fact that he’s dead. I’ve read every account of how the bodies sounded when they landed. How they may have even killed other people if they hit them before hitting the ground.

‘It’s a bit early for the papers, isn’t it?’ I flick a look at the telly on the desk. More maps of Afghanistan. I know what and where it is now. I could draw it.

‘I split the suppliers,’ Moe says, hurrying through the boxes to the back door. ‘Some are printing earlier than others. So I figured 219staggering them would sell the most. Everyone’s desperate … We’ll shift these in no time then send out another load at four.’

I shiver as I follow him out into the dark. It seems right that the temperature has dropped since everyone’s decided the world will never be the same again. I jump into the back of the open truck before it’s finished reversing, snatching just a second or two with the front pages by myself.

‘Tora Bora? What’s that?’

‘Eh?’ Moe looks up from the tarmac. He’s already down and out with his stack.

‘Tora Bora … wait…’ I reread the sentence. ‘They are caves, apparently.’ Caves? Where? Moe’s already inside the storeroom as I look up.

‘You can read it later, come on,’ he shouts over his shoulder.

I jump down, trying to read as I walk. Tora Bora? I stumble as I crash into Darren walking back out to the truck.

‘Sorry,’ I say, clutching the papers to my chest as I flush. My head went straight into him.