Inventory

I half expected that, after this long, we would open the cupboard up and find some lost explorers in here, or a nest of Gollum like creatures. Nothing nearly so fanciful. Besides which the other sports we share it with have already been allowed to restart. AGB rules means that archery, for the moment, is not so lucky. So if there were a nest of creatures in here it would have been volleyball or football (who have blocked our cabinets with their goal nets) who would have found them.

There are still some nasty surprises though. Abby and Rebecca have already found one bag of sweets which are, to put it gentlly, soft and mushy. When I start to look through the same cupboard, properly, I find more, in a box. Looking at the date underneath I see: “Best Before 2017…” YERGH! Holding it at arm’s length, as if it’s radioactive waste, I run out of the sports hall, outside, to find a bin. It’s at the other end of the building, a long way to go to get rid of something that ought to have been landfill four years ago.

In the same cupboard there’s a box of crisps from 2019 and some out of date Pepsi. I put these to one side to see what else is in here. On the top shelf I come across a photo pouch, and the first thing that comes out is a little leaflet entitled: Club Rules and Guidelines. Most of it is stuff that’s ingrained in my head. I show it to not quite once upon a Captain Will.

“Yeah, I do remember seeing that before,” he shrugs.

Behind the rules are photos. Old ones from one of those websites which lets you print out digital photos. Some of them are from shoots, and there was one shoot they did that involved shooting flaming arrows. Others are from socials, which for the next year are going to be my department. I check the date on the back of these. 2014- Even when we are long gone and forgotten, our traces remain, only to be found when the time comes to do a detailed inventory. They will look good on the instagram, which again will be my department.

“This tastes faintly of metal,” Brea says, sipping the out of date Pepsi. It does taste a bit funny, I think, whilst looking at the spread of equipment across the hall floor.

Felix has been admiring the horse bow, Katrina II, but he’s shocked that it comes with an arrow rest. Most of the bows are ancient, and the limbs are all twisted, and there’s some really old ones that need to be sold off.  The target faces have already been sorted into the good, the bad and the ugly; those that can still be used and those which need to be disposed of. Not having an infinite supply of money, we have to economise on the faces and use them until they’re nothing but rags.

I, meanwhile, have been sorting through the finger tabs and arm guards. Half the arm guards nobody knows how to use, so they’re going into the money-making machine. The curious question is to why we have so many left handed finger tabs… The answer, it turns out, is that former captain Amber accidentally ordered fifty instead of five.

I decide to pour this Pepsi away… Why we’re all suddenly drinking out of date Pepsi is a mystery that will never be solved.