|
On the Shelf: |
Behind the Counter: |
This Week's Special:
In a golden age, long ago,
there lived a precursor race known as Boomers. A sect of this people engaged in
a ritual known as 'swingers parties'. They would hang their coats in something
known as 'parlour', a decadence since lost to subdivision, before swapping
their jollies. Magic happened in one such parlour, of the wholesome dick-on-clit
variety.
Magic Coat Hangers happened.
Two went to the Dunbars, who brought a wine to drink and a wine for the host.
Two went to the Murphys, because he was nice but batting above his average. Two
went to the Hands, who has moved into the cul-de-sac two days prior and excused
themselves as best they could.
Thirty seven Magic Coat
Hangers were created because Tinder and its gay prototype tapped into certain
markets. Two have since been destroyed and three are unaccounted for. North
Korea has one.
Why should anyone give a
shit? If someone hands clothing on a Magic Coat Hanger in closet, said clothing
will be in any closet which they open. This is useful for people inclined to
wake up in other people's beds and make hasty getaway in clean clothes. Such
people often leave Magical Coat Hanger in their haste, which leaves it with
their snoring host.
'I've come into ownership of
three Magical Coat Hangers.' Mamta tastes
Syrah Syrah. 'Through barter.'
Felicity does not
quite hide jealousy: 'Sure. Speaking of barter, gimme' a coat hanger?'
Felicity is offering a Case
of Syrah Syrah, which she does not recall buying but found in her cellar. Or,
rather, five bottles, because one has been cracked for tonight's sampling.
Notes of plum, tobacco and wine. It is the most syrah of syrahs.
'Which,' Felicity reminds,
'really makes someone appreciate our unique Australian shirazes.'
Mamta does not disagree but
silently weighs previous offers, eyes behind glass of blueberry, anise. Tonight
is not the grand opening of Mamta's new bar - that is pending. This tree house
is built in the commons of a commuter town (population: village). The car park
was once used for a small primary school. A light drizzle arrives and smokers
cluster cigarettes under branches.
'I have a spirit level. And
a string level. And a laser level.'
'Everybody knew that Mr Squiggle was a coke head.'
'Which is why Pornhub doesn't have an amputee
category.'
There is no roof, so Mamta
considers Marks offer of Impossible Ceiling Tiles. Mark had hung
T-Bar as part of a restaurant fit out, using a laser level for precision of
height. The ceiling tiles were not forced into rails but they gave that
impression. Straight rows became zigzags, the flat surface curved in waves,
competing centres of gravity dragged gaze this way and that. The relativity of
Escher was not part of this contract.
Mark replaced the tiles
until the ceiling looked like a ceiling. He boxed the offending tiles until
because they were still clean and someone may want easy psychedelic decor. Mark
offering this box for three Magical Coat Hangers, which Mamta thought a bit
steep. But Mamta loves the market and if you love something you should let it
be free.
Dr Woke has also
expressed interest in the Impossible Ceiling Tiles, having grown bored with his
lair's plain volcano cavern roof. He cannot justify any new renovations after a
complete refit earlier this year. Unless he has something to celebrate. Like
money.
Dr Woke's most immediate
path to money is Protocol: Microscope. This involves threatening world leaders
with the release of a patent into the creative commons. This technology can
reduce the cost of microscopes by 90%, so it will be commonplace in a
generation. The caveat will not be obvious until commonplace: these microscopes
glitch at 400x to 1100x magnification. Nobody will be able to see chromosomes,
a disaster for certain genetic-disease specialists but super-villains will
super-villain.
'And, World Leaders,' Dr
Woke has rehearsed in mirror, swirling prop glass of S. C. Pannell 'Dead End'
2021 McClaren Vale 2021 Tempranillo, 'it is biological fact that Woman is cross
and Man asks "why". No historian can locate the concepts
"male" or "female" earlier than the 1880s. No child has
differentiated the genders before learning of chromosomes. Those non-westerns
on that island, firing bows at visiting helicopters, are a culture of
polyamorous bisexuals.
That is my threat. A world
that does not know its chromosomes will not know its genders, sexes, pfft.
Extra flesh on chest may make extra flesh between legs turgid but not lead to
fucking, because half chance gay. And gaybos won't fuck straights.
Only the bisexuals will
comfortably fuck, once they fumble into a decent position. You best hope the
stereotypes are true if there is to be anything resembling a birth rate. Is
that what you want? A generation raised by frisky bis?'
World leaders will not. Magdalene
feels otherwise.
'Fuck yeah fuck yeah fuck
yeah do it. I'll be in your debt. We'll do an indentured servitude - ingredients
in, potions out.'
Yvette had
shown concern with Magdalene's enthusiasm: 'Could I put in a counter-offer for
your future?'
'Eh? Sure.'
'So I've recently come into possession
of a bathroom.'
This time it is a
handicapped/family toilet. It had been graffitied overnight, tags on the
fold-out changing table sticking out like trashy navel tattoo. Yvette sprayed Muck-Off
and wiped with microfiber. A faint stain remained on the changing table in the
graffiti's shape. Yucky.
The next tag was on the hand
dryer. She sprayed, she wiped, then she sprayed water and wiped with a second
microfiber. Most of the graffiti was removed but what remained mixed with the
hand dryer's paint, becoming sky blue against the wall's PSU. Hm, well, Yvette
fished white paint from the shed and applied layer of cream, make of that what
you will. She hung a 'wet paint' sign before returning to her rounds.
Yvette emptied the shopping
centre bins and cleaned miscarriage off the ladies toilet floor.* The
handicapped/family toilet was hit with different tags: the changing table, the
door, the 'wet paint' sign, which felt personal. Whatevs, Yvette Muck-Offed the
graffiti as best she could and rolled the door fresh.
Yvette had lunch and watched
a nutrition
tier-list video during her cigarette. Fresh tags appeared on those faded. Fucking
school holidays.
Yvette finished the Much-Off
and texted before-and-after photographs to the boss, who charges for this work.
She binned the microfibers and kept the graffitied 'wet paint' sign as souvenir.
Yvette's shift was done.
The process repeated the
next day.
Something happened, of the
Ship of Theseus variety. The freshly painted bathroom remains at the end of the
breezeway, convenient for anyone's pooping. Piece by piece, however, the
graffitied bathroom discretely stepped outside reality. Whoever carries the
'wet paint' sign owns the paradox bathroom. Whoever owns the Paradox Bathroom
steps into it upon attempting to access any conventional bathroom. This is not
useful for someone who needs to access toilets, plural, for their work.
Now, Yvette finds Syrah
Syrah overrated: 'And you could do with more space for your alchemy.'
Magdalene growls agreement
through her drink. Potions have spilled from her overfull shelf. Through
tactical postponements the rental agent has not seen the kitchen glow swamp
green during a waxing gibbous moon.
'What, I propose,' Yvette
continues, 'is that you use this personal bathroom to make a certain potion.'
Said potion fundamentally
alters the drinker's appearance to that of the DNA (gross) added. By applying
CRISPR-Cas9 to a piece of drinker's own hair, the potion can fulfil certain
aspects of the drinker's appearance. For reasons beyond Roland Barthes,
however, the potion which fundamentally alters appearance is brewed in a female's
toilet.
Magdalene is cross about
this problem. Why? Never has man been able to sate his oh-so-desperate bowels
in the sacred ladies' shitter. No man may enter to clean shit off those temple
walls. Yvette herself cannot enter the gents
and so must work with a useless man called Aaron. This double-hiring of
cleaners, extrapolated for every public toilets, is the sole driving force
behind inflation.
(The only unoccupied female
toilet that Yvette can recall is on the third floor of her former employers.
Said toilet is currently patrolled by Amy, with drill
gun: 'Come on out, penis allegory. This is a safe space.')
'But owning this Paradox
Toilet will make it yours. A woman's. The ladies.' Yvette continues. Again. 'So
you will be able to make Polyplus Potion. And you want to. Maybe for your
customers to try out, see if it works. Or perhaps to ease the strain of those
earlier, gender dysphoric days. Or perhaps to provide some customers with a
lifetime supply, get your own indentured servants.
It could be done. It could
be cheaper than existing options and you could still profit. Profit which you'd
share with me.'
'Such enterprise would be
non-profit.' Magdalene also finds Syrah Syrah to be so-so, but she knocks back
her glass. 'But I appreciate the offer.'
Yvette suspected this
possibility. Perhaps her profits lie in added values, such as her dabblings in
sex lives. Otherwise, she has shown the Paradox Toilet to Cameron, who
remarked:
'I could make drugs whilst
shitting.'
And so the night continues
in this would-be tree house, drunken chattering:
'But with a potion of
Perfect "Eyeballing It" you can look
good.'
'Hardly the worst thing done by an Australian children's
entertainer.'
'Oh - fuuuuuck.'
Someone has leaned too far
on the railing and Mamta pours a shot of Monkey Booze. Everyone hears the oomph, 'that hurt' and the shot goes
down. A tractor crests over the hill and Steven is
still winded. The last thing he sees is headlights.
'Whoa.'
'Gnarly.
'He was a cunt.'
Mamta is going to have to shut this bar down
and start a new one. She will therefore not need the Impossible Ceiling Tiles
and the market vibrates with repercussions. Mamta pours herself a Monkey Booze
chaser. This drink is known as a Purple Spark.
*Ed: this actually happened, paramedics and all, in the handicapped toilets three months ago.
No comments:
Post a Comment