hook, a singular key. It matched the lock on the storeroom. I opened the door just a sliver and reached around for a light switch before going inside. Standard practice in Carousel.
With the light came the smell.
Dense and thick. It pushed me back like a pillow to the face.
Something was clearly rotting in there, but the smellwas also spiked with a chemical sharpness I couldnât place. I stepped back and took a few breaths.
With my shirt pulled up over my nose I tried again. I got another snap of dizziness. Intense and warm like Iâd stepped into heavy drunkenness. My legs wavered and, for a moment, it seemed like I would fall inside. Again the fractured visions of the Carousel floor plan swept past my temples.
I swayed back and brought the door shut with a bang.
I placed the key back under the counter and sat at a table in the food court for a few minutes while the sweat dried on my face. I felt nauseous and the place smelt overly bleachy for a centre that hadnât seen a cleaner in months. Curry in a Hurry stood dormant beside me. The trashy yellow sign with its chubby Indian cook full of kitsch and indifference. Something about the place unnerved me. I subconsciously added it to the list of places in Carousel that creeped me out.
It was growing.
Having put together my best impersonation of some Happy Meals, I picked up a bike from Sports Power to cycle them back to the others while they were still hot. Taylor informed me via radio that the three of them were watching
Breaking Bad
reruns in JB Hi-Fi.
âAwesome. What did you get?â she asked when Iarrived with the Maccaâs bag. We still said âgetâ like we were buying stuff rather than taking it or making it.
âHappy Meals. Nuggets,â I said and dished them out across the massive leather lounge we had positioned in front of a flatscreen.
âYouâre the best,â said Lizzy.
She resumed the show and we ate in silence while I tried to wipe the fetid smell from my mind.
Despite the massive library of films offered by the abandoned centre, we had drifted pretty quickly into watching television series. The extended narratives gave us all something to talk about, but also a sense of structure and rhythm. It was good to have something consistent in our weirdo lives, and if a TV series could offer this, albeit temporarily, we gravitated toward it, irrespective of the quality.
One of Taylor and Lizzyâs favourite things was watching
Neighbours
episodes on DVD. Neither of them had seen one of Australiaâs most clichéd and long-running soaps before arriving in Carousel. They would talk pretty much the whole way through. The acting was bad and the plot lines seemed to repeat every season, but the massive bank of episodes held the security of continuation that most series couldnât.
Rocky and I had grown up with
Neighbours
andwerenât keen to revisit something we didnât like the first time. Instead we found our structure and security in
Futurama
and
Grand Designs
.
We also only really watched stuff on the one TV. There were countless others, a lot of them bigger and with surround sound or 3D. Sometimes during alone time or at night we would watch other sets around the centre. But most of the time we would sit happily on a couple of couches in front of our seventy-two inch. If Taylor and Lizzy were watching
Neighbours
, Rocky and I would kick a soccer ball around for a bit until they were finished.
I think this was like Taylor and the books. She would drive Lizzy crazy waiting on her to finish a book rather than get a new one off the shelf. Lizzy probably knew best why Taylor did it. Something about keeping a lid on the world. About making sure she still wanted things, because wanting was important. In some way, wanting was tied to survival. Thatâs what I thought. But a lot of the time I didnât really know what was going on between them. Sometimes I felt like one day the doors would open and
With the light came the smell.
Dense and thick. It pushed me back like a pillow to the face.
Something was clearly rotting in there, but the smellwas also spiked with a chemical sharpness I couldnât place. I stepped back and took a few breaths.
With my shirt pulled up over my nose I tried again. I got another snap of dizziness. Intense and warm like Iâd stepped into heavy drunkenness. My legs wavered and, for a moment, it seemed like I would fall inside. Again the fractured visions of the Carousel floor plan swept past my temples.
I swayed back and brought the door shut with a bang.
I placed the key back under the counter and sat at a table in the food court for a few minutes while the sweat dried on my face. I felt nauseous and the place smelt overly bleachy for a centre that hadnât seen a cleaner in months. Curry in a Hurry stood dormant beside me. The trashy yellow sign with its chubby Indian cook full of kitsch and indifference. Something about the place unnerved me. I subconsciously added it to the list of places in Carousel that creeped me out.
It was growing.
Having put together my best impersonation of some Happy Meals, I picked up a bike from Sports Power to cycle them back to the others while they were still hot. Taylor informed me via radio that the three of them were watching
Breaking Bad
reruns in JB Hi-Fi.
âAwesome. What did you get?â she asked when Iarrived with the Maccaâs bag. We still said âgetâ like we were buying stuff rather than taking it or making it.
âHappy Meals. Nuggets,â I said and dished them out across the massive leather lounge we had positioned in front of a flatscreen.
âYouâre the best,â said Lizzy.
She resumed the show and we ate in silence while I tried to wipe the fetid smell from my mind.
Despite the massive library of films offered by the abandoned centre, we had drifted pretty quickly into watching television series. The extended narratives gave us all something to talk about, but also a sense of structure and rhythm. It was good to have something consistent in our weirdo lives, and if a TV series could offer this, albeit temporarily, we gravitated toward it, irrespective of the quality.
One of Taylor and Lizzyâs favourite things was watching
Neighbours
episodes on DVD. Neither of them had seen one of Australiaâs most clichéd and long-running soaps before arriving in Carousel. They would talk pretty much the whole way through. The acting was bad and the plot lines seemed to repeat every season, but the massive bank of episodes held the security of continuation that most series couldnât.
Rocky and I had grown up with
Neighbours
andwerenât keen to revisit something we didnât like the first time. Instead we found our structure and security in
Futurama
and
Grand Designs
.
We also only really watched stuff on the one TV. There were countless others, a lot of them bigger and with surround sound or 3D. Sometimes during alone time or at night we would watch other sets around the centre. But most of the time we would sit happily on a couple of couches in front of our seventy-two inch. If Taylor and Lizzy were watching
Neighbours
, Rocky and I would kick a soccer ball around for a bit until they were finished.
I think this was like Taylor and the books. She would drive Lizzy crazy waiting on her to finish a book rather than get a new one off the shelf. Lizzy probably knew best why Taylor did it. Something about keeping a lid on the world. About making sure she still wanted things, because wanting was important. In some way, wanting was tied to survival. Thatâs what I thought. But a lot of the time I didnât really know what was going on between them. Sometimes I felt like one day the doors would open and
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