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He picked up some Danone fruit yoghurt and sugar-free 'Mesa Sunrise' cereal, skim milk and bananas -- all of which his kids would detest. He bumped his trolley into individuals of every race and colour, all wearing clothes with their high-end brands clearly marked. A few days ago, he had made the mistake of arriving here at six in the evening. The emporium was chock-a-block with office staff spewing out of the surrounding towers, ordering takeout meals from the highly nutritious in-store deli.
Coming off the escalator onto the main lobby, he shouldered his way through the revolving doors and winked at Columbus sitting atop his perch on a column at the centre of a traffic island, surrounded by driving savages. Welcome to the New World.
Waiting for a gap in the traffic, he glanced at his watch. There was still time to visit John.
Darting through the battlefield of warring vehicles, he took a weaving path in some nondescript corner of Central Park until he came to a Portuguese-style circular mosaic in white and grey tiles with the word 'Imagine' at its centre.
The size and shapes of landmarks in Manhattan always baffled him. Expecting large and brash, neon flashing signs to show the way, he was disappointed to see this circle, barely nine-foot in diameter, the size of his family's round dining table, stuck in the middle of a winding pathway as a memorial to John Lennon. Then again, in all his ramblings across this breathtakingly beautiful and tranquil park, he had never seen a memorial to any US President.
He sat down on a bench and took out a Petrossian croissant to nibble. A bouquet of memories came to him.
On the 28th of April, 1980 he emigrated to Calgary, Canada from England. It took six months to build a credit record before he could lease a television from Granada. One of the first news items he watched was John's assassination on December 8. A date he couldn't forget because that was his father's birthday and, subsequently, his son's also.