MONO ISSUE 2 - Flipbook - Page 83
movie prop. There were exhibits about other wars when I visited the museum. A sixwheeled armoured personnel carrier that once rolled down streets in Northern Ireland.
Muddy photographs from the Falklands. The twisted wreckage of an Iraqi car.
But right now, we aren’t talking about those wars. We’re talking about the war of Dad’s
Army, The Dirty Dozen war, the Saving Private Ryan war, the Captain America and
Inglorious Basterds and Call of Duty war. We’re talking about the war we won.
Five minutes to go. I want to go home. I don’t want to think about it anymore. I want
to watch a movie about something else, where people point guns in a fun way and
bombs are defused with five seconds left on the timer.
I am told to go and give the five-minute warning to the last of the late-night shoppers.
I go up to the customer in the book section. He’s still reading but when I tell him we’re
about to close he puts the book back on the shelf.
“Thank you,” he says, very polite, and leaves.
I go back to the front desk. My face is burning, and my boss has stopped swinging his
legs. He asks me what the matter is.
“I think he had a German accent,” I say quietly. My boss frowns.
“Maybe,” he says and shrugs. Looks uncomfortable.
I am uncomfortable too. I wish I hadn’t said anything. Maybe it wasn’t German. It
could have been Dutch or Belgian. Austrian.
We lock the doors. The conversation has moved on; we’re talking about how busy we
were today. I am more enthusiastic about this topic- maybe too enthusiastic. I worry
that I’m confirming the worst stereotypes of my generation. That we are overly sensitive.
That we are so scared of offense that we don’t let anything be said at all.
Maybe there’s some truth to that. Sometimes I don’t want anything else to be said. I
don’t want anymore stories. I don’t want any more footage or pictures on the wall. I
imagine a blank slate world. I want a snow to fall outside the shop window and cover
everything up. I want the only footsteps to be my own. Clear cut and not up for
interpretation.
But the seasons are strange this year. They’ve grown stranger every year since I was
born. We step outside, into a warm winter rain and say goodbye. My shift tomorrow
starts at ten. As I walk home, I pass the bus stop. The customer with the accent is
waiting there. I look past him, to an advertisement that glows on the wall of the shelter.
It’s for a movie I’ve been waiting to see.
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