wandering contentedly through the largest supermarket i have ever seen - they have everything and i want to buy it all. the oprah winfrey soundtrack chirps cheesily overhead through the speakers while we ponder succulent pastries and breads, deeply inh aling that warm yeasty smell. i laugh at the clothes racks filled with hastily constructed garments: purple trousers emblazoned with the slogan 'heterosexual sleaze ball'. somewhere sits a warehouse full of these disasters gathering dust while the imp orter wrings his hands in dismay.
sitting in a large cafeteria when harrison ford wearily approaches the table offering to refill our coffee cups. he is resplendent in a jaunty white paper hat, red bow tie and white shirt. i am amazed at this man who must be worth millions, choosing to work cafe shifts to keep in touch with the common man/woman.
warren beatty strikes up a conversation, eagerly wanting to know how many of his films i've seen. i confess to only having seen bonny and clyde. in a fit of pique, he bombards me with clips of gut-tweaking drama and visual spectacle - beatty, as a woman diving picturesquely to the bottom of a deep blue swimming pool. a delicate trail of bubbles drift lazily to the surface, he soars upward only to find on reaching the surface that the room is consumed with blazing fire; white heat scorching his terrif ied face, forcing him under. caught between searing toxic-orange flame and muffling blue water, of course he cannot escape, but i never remember how that film ends.
sometime before this we were under attack by low flying bombers. a sunny day outside my childhood home, and the planes hover ten metres above, their fat metal bodies blocking the sky, raining silver bombs upon us. some bombs stick obstinately head down in the earth refusing to explode, others wreak havoc, joyfully completing their task at the expense of people and buildings. i grimace waiting for the death, the sudden red nothing that never delivers.
back in the cafeteria surrounded by vacuous groovy young things. a girl i know lifts her skirt to reveal a large flaccid penis. on the overhead video screen is the new song by whitney houston and jimmy smit's novelty band. their self-reflexive faces be lting out the chorus 'have you been butt-sucked by madonna yet?' i wonder how ms. houston came to change her squeaky-clean image thus and if madonna will sue.
the cafeteria is now the tessellated pavement on the tasman peninsula. i wander alone over the cliffs, clambering over boulders out to a precarious windswept ledge. gazing down at the turbulent foam knowing the water could leap up and snatch me possessi vely to its bosom . part of me wishes it would. leaping back over the rocks back to the cliff i see beads of a blue necklace just like mine lying in a crack seeming to foretell my disappearance and/or death...the beads might be all that remains if i'm sucked into the hungry sea.
copyright 1995 lisa bode