Looking Glass
I was sitting at a café terrace in the shadows of a boiling city sun. It was the hottest day of the year, shoppers were coming and going in shorts and sandals through the concrete jungle, diners were packed with punters seeking refuge from the heat. I was wearing a grey trench and a hat to match and I was drinking black coffee and smoking a Lucky Strike. I was everything a twenty-first century film noir character should be. I was calling on my imagination.
The café was a counterfeit Parisian bistro: plastic woven chairs, trompe-l'oeil bevelled windows with gold writing, wrought iron pedestals with mock marble table tops... It could have been anywhere but Paris, except maybe World Disney. All the fun of the fair.
"No café crème?" I say blithely to the Polish waitress. She doesn't get the joke. "We have latte, cappuccino, espresso, americano..."
"Alright. Make mine americano I guess." She gives me a stiff smile and disappears inside.
I stub out my cigarette and reach for another.
The global village is all glass and steel. Prism prisons. Free-market nationalities triumph: Italian restaurants, 'THE REAL CHINA', a regular Japanese sushi place, a burger joint and a 'traditional' British pub. Apartments occupy the top floors, the kind you would expect to find on the French riviera - glass balconies, sliding doors. But there's no sea view downtown. Everyone's as far away from the sea as possible. There's nobody on the balconies. The apartments might just as well be showrooms. Luxury developments stumbled upon hard times.
A different waitress drops my coffee off without a word.
The woman at the table next to me keeps looking over suspiciously. I'm the only person here without company. People always suspect loners in social places. She's middle-aged, blonde with dark roots and a gold pendant. She's sitting with a russian guy who's always on his mobile phone while vaguely listening to her. She's talking about all the places she's been. "I wanna be in America from October and I don't wanna back until March." Or: "I haven't been to Paris in years... I need to go." She sounds convincing. Did the conversation come about because this place reminds her of the rest of the world? Or did she come here to play holiday for a few hours?
I down the last of my americano. Time to hit the trail. I pull up my collar and head for the shopping precinct. That's where everyone else seems to go to find what they need. An anonymous tip informed me that "they have everything there." I walk through a hall of mirrors to a couple of escalators. There's an upper balcony with a good point of vantage so I step onto the upward escalator and slowly reach for my camera. I have only taken a couple of snaps when I notice a yellow jacket out of the corner of my eye. I keep on snapping as if I hadn't seen him.
It's not long before a couple of high-vis jackets are standing right behind me.
"What're you doing?" One of them asks. I decide to play the tourist card.
"Whiling away the time until dinner."
"No funny games. What are you doing with that camera?"
"Hopefully taking some great photographs."
"Can't do that I'm afraid. No photography allowed. You'll need special permission."
I grunt and ease back on the balustrade, reaching for a Lucky. They both stare at me as I put it in my mouth, waiting for a reply.
Jacket one buts in: "Scuse me, you can't smoke in here."
"It's the law." Reinforces jacket number two.
"Tell me then, what exactly can someone like me do around here?" Jacket two shrugs and says:
"Shop... eat... drink..."
I chuckle and say "Look kid, my informer told me you can find everything here. Now I'm not interested in shopping or eating. What else do you have to offer?"
The high-vis jackets look confused - a mixture of incredulity and anxiety. One of them starts talking in code on his radio, frequently looking up at me, I hear something like 'perverse'.
Jacket two steps forward and says "I think you had better leave. Next time we'll confiscate your camera. Whatever it is you're looking for, I don't think you'll find it here."
Mothers and children are staring. "Oh I'll leave alright. But I'll find what I'm looking for – eventually. I always do." I pull up my collar, readjust my hat, stuff my hands in my pockets and make for the exit. Damned door takes me almost ten minutes to find. And I'm no closer to finding inspiration.
