with the prime minister
i turn up to an important dinner function for paul keating in a huge ball-room. i had been there the day before and left my broken umbrella and my folio containing my birth certificate, references and uni results. i have arrived early in a bold entrance, asking loudly if anyone has seen my things. my mother and the prime minister get up with wry smiles and tell me they will search upstairs. i have a memory of my mother being an old flame of the pm's, and i wonder if he will kiss her upstairs.
i look around the ball-room, there are four enormous round tables, decked in white linen and crystal. at one sits the government ministers, at the next one sits women of note and power, the other two seat old wealthy society people. i take a seat at the women's table, and become aware that i am the youngest there and that i am wearing a crimson satin shirt and black velvet trousers. many women there are wearing crimson, and i think that maybe it is the colour of a strong female. paul keating and my mother come downstairs and give me my umbrella, they didn't find the folio. i am disappointed 'cos i was hoping paul would see my acheivements and give me a good job.
for some reason i leave the dinner, walking down the mansion stairs and along the road into the forest. suddenly, without knowing why, i end up further away than i wanted to be. i am stuck in the forest, trying to get back to the ever distant mansion while a gang of youths has appeared with a huge 7 foot tall half retarded man/boy as their ring-leader. every time i try to run ahead, he reaches out his long arms and pulls me back. i feel frustrated, disturbed and a little fearful.
i know that he is strong and i will have to use my wits to trick him rather than my strength. i pretend to like him, and he bundles me up close to his face (which now looks just like the face of my second, brutal boy-friend), he is like king kong, stupid and dangerous but easily manipulated emotionally. he walks on towards the mansion, with me clinging to his front trying to keep up my charade as i caress his face and rub noses with him. i sniff his face and can smell him, he smells like warm, comforting bed-clothes.
we are at the bottom of the mansion stairs, and i suddenly break free, bounding up the layers of white marble into the room, turning into a bee/wasp as i go. i fly up to the ceiling and survey the crowd. many have left by now, and paul is singing an emotional torch song about how he feels like a frustrated parent to an ungrateful child when the electorate doesn't like him. i turn into me again, dropping down next to my mother. i catch the bee and feed it to her just in time. i ask her if it is stinging her. she tells me she has a slight stinging sensation as it goes down her gullet.
copyright 1994 lisa bode