11th of February, 8:42 am
Jarrad Mann's moment had come.
The 15 or so other players on the court swarmed around him, each serving their duty to their team. They performed their roles like clockwork, but lacking in vision. Jarrad was different. Before him, through the testosterone, screaming hysterical males, heat of the summer morning and fierce competition, he spied an opening. Bouncing his basketball once . . . twice . . . three times, he began to run. The world appeared to move in slow motion. His thick brown curls swung backwards and forwards in his eyes and a bead of sweat fell from his brow, moving and changing shape as it plummeted to its doom on the asphalt below. The other players shuffled backwards and forwards, territorial crabs, defending their home, or alternatively, pushing to expand their own. Jarrad was not a crab, he was a sea gull, preparing for flight.
He pushed forwards and through the mess of people and flapped his wings. Just ahead, a teammate rolled on their ankle and fell in agony to the ground. From this agony, Jarrad spread his wings to their full, incredible span, placed his scaly sea gull foot on the shell of the ailing crab before him, and took flight. He soared, uninhibited, graceful and free through the air. He swung his arm from behind with ball in hand. His moment had arrived, and in that moment, he slipped the ball through the hoop and hung from the ring, basking in glory.
"Jarrad Anthony Mann!" roared Lucy Bonanno from the window of her car parked just beside the court.
"Get in the fucking car; if we miss this plane, I miss my convention, and if I miss my convention I'm going to end you, you will be dead . . . the you that you are now will be reduced to a puddle of post-human goo; now get your ass in the car."
"Whipped!" was the reply of one of his teammates, accompanied by the juvenile poor attempt at a whipping noise.
"Who are you?!" she questioned, "No . . . I don't care, just shut up."
He moved to her door, awkwardly shifted her pile of medical text books and sat next to her.
"Hey."
"Unbelievable."
11th of February, 9:15 am
Eyelashes thickened, eyebrows smoothed, hairs pulled with tweezers, foundation applied, bronzer applied on top, mascara drawn on, eye shadow above the eyes, eye liner pencil adding definition. Lipstick was applied (candied red, water resistant), hair combed, hair combed again, blouse retied, skirt straightened, belt tightened and smile beaming. Emma Jenkins was looking her best, as always. She packed her things back into her handbag and turned away from the terminal bathroom mirror, proud of her morning's efforts.
Emerging from the bathroom she stepped towards the crowd of people moving towards the gates. At the same time, the door of the men's room opened vertically opposite the women's. From the bathroom emerged a young man of roughly the same age as her, his relatively long hair ruffled and still in the process of buttoning up his black and blue checkered shirt. He grinned widely as he walked away, not noticing Emma while she observed him. In the wake of the young man, also from the men's room, emerged a tall, blonde Scandinavian girl. She fixed the bandana she was using as a headband, jumped up and down so as to shift her tube top back to it's original position and then turned to Emma.
"Hullo" she basically yelled optimistically at Emma, who's expression of barely concealed disapproval appeared not to be registered by the uber friendly tourist.
"What the fuck?" she whispered under her breath as she turned and walked towards the gate. It only took a few steps for her to regain her excited smile and a few more before she walked with an invigorated spring.
12th of February, 9:30 am
A host of compact triangular planes in a large grid began to whir simultaneously.
"Training sequence is ready for commencement," crackled through 20 individual radios within the fighter planes.
Masks covered the face of each pilot as they prepared for take off.
With the combined skill of a highly practiced squad, they lifted from the aircraft carrier on which they previously rested, each row to a different elevation. For a few seconds, they hovered, engines expelling gas downwards, until with a roar and blast signaling the shattering of barrier, they disappeared leaving thick white plumes of smoke behind them.
11th of February 9:18 am
Dante Finlay Melville entered through the doors of the airport feeling like a god. His silhouette was illuminated by the rays of the morning sun and unknowingly, he placed his hands on his hips and turned his head slightly.
He was Adonis, although far sweatier and minus the face melting beauty.
In keeping with his regiment of unnecessary fitness he had power walked from his home in Concord to Sydney Airport. Figuring he would only need his money for new possessions once in London, travel documents and a change of clothes, he set out from his door in the waking ours of the morning with his backpack and a towel.
Once in the airport, the air conditioner reached down and embraced him like an old friend.
Across the floor he saw the baggage check in, eyes falling on a particularly buxom Qantas employee.
He'd already sorted his baggage arrangements the previous night on the internet, however the line was short and his adrenaline was pumping.
12th of February, 4:25 am
"I trust you've all read the safety guidelines?" asked the guide in an infuriatingly patronising tone.
Behind him an enormous blue and purple canvas shifted and moaned as though it were waking from a long, undisturbed slumber.
"Yes,"
"It can be pretty chilly up in the balloon," the guide felt compelled to place his arms around his chest and make a noise a four year old would associate with cold, just in case the customers before him were mildly disabled and could not comprehend his words. "It will be hours before we touch down on the iconic Bellllonngilll Beach," the extra letters weren't needed, but he felt they made the speech more exciting. "So let's rug up!"
Tuesday, February 15, 2011
Monday, February 14, 2011
Long Way To Fall - Part 1
12th of February, 10:00 am
11th of February, 9:00 am
"Call for all passengers of flight QA915, boarding begins in 15 minutes, that's flight QA915 to London, boarding begins in 15 minutes."
Parking inspectors hovered around the airport drop off like self-important hornets, administering justice through their painful stings. Keeping the hive of society protected from heinous predators and their propensity to take slightly longer than was required to part with their flight bound relatives. Defying the insectoid inspectors were thousands of voyagers, each with individual motivations, some mundane, some whimsical. They all headed for the terminal to be greeted with Sydney Airport's signature blast of synthetic winter. Giddy holiday makers armed with unattractive cardigans, state-of-the-art cameras, coin pouches and the occasional visor pranced excitedly down the terminal towards their gates.
Airport security checked their watches, practically simultaneously, not due to any freak coincidence, but rather the incredible frequency of watch monitoring that seemed to occur in all the employees. Bag upon bag x-rayed by disinterested men and women as the hippies before them silently prayed for a lack of suspicious residue in their canvas travel bags.
Further along the terminal was an ocean of cafés; wild and tempestuous. Bemused wait staff wandered aimlessly through tables searching for the appropriate number so as to unload their scolding beverages. Managers of the cafés stood rigidly in front of their coffee machines, as bitter as the coffee they ground, watching the café immediately beside them, each one paradoxically more popular than their own.
Beyond the caffeine stretch lay the gates, overseen by air hostesses warming their boarding pass scanners. While the machines hummed, they exchanged intimate details of their lives and respective partners' shortcomings, much to each other's amusement. Gradually, excited first time tourists gathered around the entrance to the gates, withheld by the impenetrable barrier that was the black airport cordon held up by a series of poles standing freely on the carpet. The hostesses exchanged glances of solemn mutual agreement; talk of their partners' curious sexual habits could wait until mid flight, for first, the cordon was to be taken down.
11th of February, 8:53 am
A silver service taxi rolled into the unloading zone before the sliding doors of terminal three. 20 metres away, a hornet turned to a fresh page of his ticket book and waited in anxious hope. Then, the door of the taxi was opened.
From the space between the door and the car, slid a leg, clad in a black stocking ending in a black shoe as dark as the depths of space, with a heel that seemed to question the very laws of physics. Shortly after, it was followed by a hand, clasping the roof of the car; light blue fingernails marked by intricate black drawing of wildflowers on each one. Working together, the hand and foot pulled from the car, the full figure of Jessica Ho. Eyes shielded by her sunglasses and clinging tightly to her customary taro easyway (complete with pearls), she walked to the boot of the taxi. Her dress of black lace ending just before her knees fluttered slightly in the wind, as she retrieved her crimson wheely bag. The hornet approached.
"You can only stay in the unloading bay for a period of tw-"
"Get Fucked" she replied.
Bag handle in one hand, easyway in the other and silver dragon ring wound around her right index finger, she left the shocked inspector standing by the taxi and entered the terminal.
She walked in her towering heels, still somewhat shorter than the average person, as though along an invisible tight rope, never faltering but rather walking with a steady, calculated rhythm.
The easyway was particularly good.
11th of February, 9:01 am
The coffee was somewhat burnt, and tasted like soil. In fact, so much so, that Michael Kennedy, quietly sitting in an airport cafe, drinking his soil coffee, was almost sure, he felt a centipede crawling around the rim of the mug. He was taking notes in a journal, for a short story he probably wouldn't write, that only made sense in his head, as per usual. All the same, he found it relaxing and somewhat calming to catalogue his thoughts in this way.
He checked his watch passively. There was still a reasonable amount of time before the plane was to depart and he was eager for the change of scenery his new home would provide, so he returned to his page as a distraction. With his brow furrowed, he attempted to return to his previous focus but instead found himself reenacting skits from the muppet show in his head.
11th of February, 9:06 am
"Do you have any aerosols?" asked the woman at the baggage check in desk, turning her nose up and thus showcasing it's potential as a marble carving tool.
"No," came the reply of Clare Delfendahl as she impatiently readjusted her Irish golf hat.
"What's the purpose of your visit?" asked the woman.
"Visiting family."
"And what about you?" she asked turning to Katherine Hoban, standing beside Clare, her hair an even brighter red than her friend's, "what is the purpose of your visit?"
"To visit her family," she replied casually.
"Don't you have your own family to visit?" asked the woman. An old saying connected a person's manner of speech when cold and rude to having recently sucked on a lemon; this woman had clearly had a lemon thrown at her face.
"My family all died in an horrific supermarket accident."
"My condolences," she said.
Clare's eyebrows raised somewhat as the desk woman moved her glasses back up her nose.
"I wasn't seriou-"
"Do you have visas?" she interrupted.
"We have citizenship," replied Clare, giving the employee a glance that could melt steel.
"Oh," she replied, "that's nice. Any weapons?"
"What?"
"Are you carrying any weapons with you?"
Clare was frustrated and hungry, and this woman looked like she hadn't eaten in over a decade so empathy was clearly a lost cause.
"No we aren't carrying weapons."
"Except for the rocket launcher," said Katherine in her inherently mischievous voice, proceeding to mime the action of firing a rocket launcher and the associated recoil.
"Rocket launchers are on the list of prohibited items."
"We don't actually have a rocket launcher!" Cried Clare, longing for a pastry of sorts.
"Your friend said you did."
"I was joking!"
"Terrorism isn't humourous."
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