Raspberry McCartney

Most of you call it sugar....I call it white gold. Back in the day that's how the kids got high. Every break time, every lunch time, every end of school time, the ice cream man parked outside our gates and started peddling those sugary treats. Our pleasures were simple. Break a Milk Flake in half, stick a piece in either nostril and pour a can of Vimto down your throat in one go and you experience a euphoria, a giddy rush not unlike crystal meth while neatly sidestepping the psychotic behaviour and paranoid raving. Or so we thought. We were blinded by our sugary high, underestimating its grip and confusing the strange hallucinations that danced in our minds with lucid reality. We started to mess with our dealer....the silver-haired ice cream man...by requesting an ice lolly that did not exist. 'Can I have a Raspberry McCartney, please?' 'What?' 'The Beatles ice lolly...you must have sold me two or three last week.' 'Are you sure?' 'You sell 'em, mate.' The next kid asked for a Raspberry McCartney...and the next one....and the next one..and the next one. Our dealer got nervous....no-one was buying...the addicts no longer got off on Vimto and double flake...he made half his living off the sugar junkies and teen ice cream fiends....but now his business was on the rocks and he started to crack under the strain.....'N-next week. I've been searching everywhere,' he stammered the following day. 'It's all right,' said the kid at the front of the queue. 'I'll have a Lemon Lennon instead.' 'I-I don't...' 'Okay a Mango Ringo?' 'N-n-no.' 'An Aniseed Harrison?' "Uuuuuh.' 'Sod it, we're going to The Spar.' The ice cream man never came back again. I like to think he's still out there...looking for Raspberry McCartneys...wherever they may be.