As Matthew walks through the automated doors, a musical voice says, “Welcome, Matthew. We understand your appointment involves the storage of love. Please be seated in the red area.”
Unsure how to react, a smile and a slight nod are all he can muster.
The room has three areas. Green is for intelligence accumulation, blue is for family memory storage, and red is for the storage of love. Each coloured area has a certain number of seats with touchscreens and headsets, depending on what services the client requires.
Matthew takes in the room, notices the green and blue areas are quiet today and makes his way to the red section. A cyborg arranges unusual metal shapes in a line, looks up, scans him, and says, “Hello, Matthew. Please go to seat number 4.”
Uneasy, Matthew looks slightly to the right side and asks, “What do I do?”
Without moving, the cyborg says, “Sit down, put the headset on, select the number of years of love you wish to hold on escrow, and the headset will do all the work for you. You may feel a little lightheaded afterwards; however, most symptoms pass in a few hours.”
Unease intensifies, and an odd gut feeling threatens to take him from this place. However, there is no time to waste.
Disorientated, he finds himself sitting down. Those who wear headsets do not move. It is as if they are between life and death. The uneasy feeling has gone, and there is no longer a gut reaction. Doubt creeps in, then fades.
The neon red screen presents Matthew with several options. He can hold between one and fifteen years of love. He chooses ten years, places the headset on, and presses start.
Thoughts from when he was much younger come to him. He is no longer afraid, for he feels love. Then his first love and their first kiss play behind his eyes like a movie. The memories of love keep moving through his mind. Suddenly the memories stop moving, the word ‘finished’ appears in red on the screen, and he removes the headset.
Matthew has not felt this hollow in some time. It is as though he is missing a part, yet nothing replaced what is missing. Perhaps it is just as his boss explained when he said Matthew should do this to further his career. After all, love has no place in finance.
Perspiration and a feeling of heat take hold within the stifling sheets.
Sleep comes slow, yet when it comes, events progress, and I’m standing in front of a light green house with gold-laced windows in a forest at the top of a hill at the end of a cul-de-sac.
Nothing makes sense, as a random stranger dances up with multiple women and says he’s been waiting for me to arrive.
Events progress, then I’m awake from one nightmare only to see something in the bathroom mirror. A heart can only miss so many beats as the sheets become a greenhouse.
Between the nightmares, your side of the bed is empty. You sit in another room playing a game at 2 am, while sleep is inevitable.
Mr No Name sits in his usual spot beside Adelaide Rose Davies. Tonight is quiet, dark, and it smells of half-dead roses from so many fresh graves. A man who used to have a name is now known as Mr No Name. A man not even worthy of having a first name. This evening he thinks about the smell of the half-dead roses on the breeze and what he lost. Tired, he lays his head down to sleep with his only friends, the dead in the cemetery. Homeless and alone, this is the only place he finds peace and quiet to sleep and dream of his painful memories. His memories of a loving wife, two loving daughters, a house full of light, and the day she walked away because he lost his business to a cruel recession. He dreams about his daughters in colour. Any money he has he spends on his mobile phone to see their faces from time to time. Sometimes, when he is lucky, he sees his wife holding the arm of that famous person. He sees her, and he falls in love every time. Laying there, he writes a message to both of his daughters on Messenger. Perhaps they will see it, or they won’t. He writes a forgiveness message of kindness and love to the mother of his children. There are no pillows anymore, no kisses from his girls, and no feelings of warmth and happiness to mend his broken heart. He rests his head on Adelaide’s grave, then asks a question he never thought he would ask, “Adelaide, can I please come down there with you? I always feel calm beside you.” The cemetery remains serene as the night moves along; there is no snoring anymore, for the broken heart stopped beating at 3:15 am. Ten minutes after his girls and the love of his life deleted his messages.
Walking towards work; dreaming about being rich, staying in bed, champers for breakfast, bending our legs together, and trying out the waffle maker.
Reality floods back and I realise my skirt is too tight; the Covid Spread, like a Biscoff addiction, gone wrong, has me in its hold.
Walking down the ally towards the office, noticing the Passion Pop bottles placed randomly near the old broken door, and feeling university nostalgia coming on like an awkward chance meeting.
Turning back, I see the brick wall, and a door leading to more bricks, pipes, a hidy hole for one. A cat passes over there looking for food in the bins, and I feel sad; humans shit me sometimes.
Standing in an ally, hoping no cars come by to take me from my thoughts, and staring into the magical Dandewrong wall portal, hoping it will take me to another dimension; away from the grind.
Nothing happens. It is a hole in the wall, and nothing more. Then I look again and think this is only a reminder of the crumbling history we once knew. Crumbling history before our eyes, as this place becomes something else.
You wake up in terror as a toilet brush dances around you. For some reason you think the torch beside your bed is a gun and that you can kill it; you cannot kill a plastic brush.
Baffled about your predicament, you decide to pull the covers over your head. You can still hear the bristles, and the handle is knocking against your bed frame.
Unsure what to do, you throw the covers off, jump off the bed, and hide in the corner.
The toilet brush gathers momentum, lunges at your face and you scream profanities as you wonder why the toilet brush is tangerine.
In the distance, you hear, “Anna, Anna, wake up!”
Disoriented and sleepy, you say, “Huh, what the! I was having a- huh?”
You partner looks down at you worried, “You had a bad dream-“
“What is that on the Telly!?”
“Anna, don’t worry. It’s only Donald Trump.”
Through tired sobs you say, “I dreamt he was a toilet brush…”
C & K 