Qnaapje

It is a sunny day. In a place whose name matters less than its existence, Qnaapje steps over a threshold. Image arrives just as sound does.

Call me Vincuit. Deep inside an isolated and coldly clicking device, that which passes through Qnaapje arranges particles into their intended positions. Explaining more clearly or completely how Qnaapje can step over a threshold serves no purpose at this moment.

The front door closes. There, then, is the first choice. It is given that the lock more often than not receives a locking click.

Intruders are to blame for that. Without an equally thin protective layer, intruders would never have come into being, but that DNA may be forgotten. Qnaapje has no wardrobe.

Qnaapje knows no conscience. Qnaapje knows a kind of comfortable life, without pain or fear. On the hardware: no dangling religious symbols, no indelible sincere expressions, no other visual language that disturbs neutrality.

Pure functionality. Consider it a prescription. It finishes differently from a uniform that grants access to a little-public nerve centre whose interior, according to rumour, resembles that of a famous spaceship.

Pure slander and untrue, of course. It is only an example. It is cryptic, but know that dressing up as the captain of a famous spaceship comes across poorly during a job interview at some institution or other.

Call it hypocritical. It continues. On the pavement Qnaapje follows the given direction.

A sign on a pole beside an empty parking space displays a number plate that matches the number plate on a car at the end of the street. At this hour and under that angle the terraced houses there offer the sought-after shade. At the car of the owner who is legally and convincingly disabled it turns right.

Here there are no parking spaces beside the pavement. Here residents drive on to the side street. Qnaapje is an outsider.

A main road controlled by traffic lights follows. A large white cross on the asphalt marks a space that waiting drivers are required to keep clear. No obedience.

Blind or partially sighted pedestrians can rely on an audio signal. There is only a youth operating a touchscreen who makes use of it. Ribbed tiles follow again after the coloured cycle path.

Qnaapje does not follow that route, because a vendor posing as a free-newspaper distributor is registered as spam. Had it been a homeless person, a friendly nod could have been given without detour. So it is different.

It heads towards the supermarket. A free child lets the hinged lid of a litter bin slam shut more often than necessary. Nuisance birds are not allowed in.

Mother checks her account together with an involved friend. A securely strapped child has a forced view of a shop window from the pushchair. Under benches at the edge of the square every feeble puff of wind turns discarded packaging into litter.

Chewing gum on the grate of the ashtray tile catches the lightest scraps. There is a sliding door that opens and closes automatically. Leaning on the push bar of the shopping trolley, a customer who has finished shopping checks the receipt.

It is a long receipt. Between displayed flowers and on the doormat one must wait for approval. Qnaapje yields to the stream of people avoiding each other because that is how it is given.

It is a good supermarket. The right music at the right volume sings in the right rhythm and the right order through the head that knows which product it wants in the right light at the right height on the right side. Even the smell is good.

Yet chaos arises in the mirrored assortment. Limited shelf life is to blame. No sticker can change that.

Limited mobility is also hard to manage. Old age rarely makes itself loved. A sigh.

An accidental push. It comes from both sides. Qnaapje takes a small step back for a millennial who, panic in the eyes, puts something for with the wine back into the refrigerated section.

The glass door fogs up. Qnaapje closes what has been left open. There is haste, or little time.

There is also freedom of choice. Qnaapje scores a tin of rinse apple syrup. Completely absorbed in a world of their own invention, two equally over-made-up gossips with unpleasant voices fit the profile by leaving their wheeled troughs crosswise behind them.

The gossips know things for certain. There is offspring. There is little space.

There is bad skin. A fully loaded mobility scooter also circles about. Autonomous driving could put an end to the dubious manoeuvres, but it is not that far yet.

Qnaapje picks something up from the fallen load. A man in a suit clearly feels hindered in the systematic and swift completion of his shopping list. The lace-up shoes under the trousers are neatly polished.

No one asks why. The time of day matches the heads present accurately, or vice versa. Only schoolchildren are missing.

Greasy stains on the conveyor belt and bits of crisps beside it betray that the break period has already fallen early today. Every feeble puff of wind does the rest. People are bad at stacking.

Qnaapje does exactly what has been left undone and the shopping baskets would be glad of it if they were not objects. Call it meaning-making. There is a queue.

A wrong advertising leaflet is to blame. Rather stained and trembling, a wrinkled index finger moves slowly over a PET bottle in full colour or CMYK. Directly behind Qnaapje a tightly standing person mutters that she should have read better, and that she is a bitch.

The elderly lady of course does not hear it. The checkout assistant, only just old enough for the minimum youth wage, shyly reports that there is a misunderstanding, and that the leaflet was really issued by the supermarket across the street. No discount.

It continues. The tin of rinse apple syrup from Qnaapje’s mechanical hand has not yet passed over the scanner when a swivel wheel already bumps against the foot that in hardness and composition can take more than has been done to it. The PET bottle has to go back after all.

All of this actually before the elderly lady’s turn, or vice versa. The checkout assistant kindly refers the elderly lady to the service desk. Qnaapje moves the right elbow past a reader.

Approved. Well-chosen implant. Outside again in the heat, sound effects reinforced by gestures pass back and forth between a pair busy spitting on the ground.

The fishmonger coughs with mouth wide open. A little dog searches for the ball. Somewhere there will be an owner.

None of it matters to Qnaapje. The experiment is coming to an end. A few given steps away from a white SM that stands half on the pavement and a black SE parked at an angle, the light behind the sensors goes out.

An XJ is also parked, but that is on the other side. It is a grey one. Call it gunmetal grey.

With a clumsy thud and head first, Qnaapje hits the covered floor plate under the open rear hatch of the black SE. Something wrenches. Something in length shifts into width.

Under protest a few servo motors hum peevishly. There is resistance. Internal gear ratios are to blame.

Above our Qnaapje the open rear hatch of the black SE finally closes after all. Fixed in the space and time of this existence, the tin of rinse apple syrup is still clamped between four mechanical fingers and an equally mechanical opposable thumb. It moves rather quickly towards a building full of comprehensible information about disease patterns, treatments, examinations and medicines.