My Dad kept the machine locked in the basement.
We understood the importance of safety. They had drummed the rules into us since primary school via guest speakers and songs on the piano. I have fun memories of the television warning campaigns broadcast between documentaries about deserts with lizards the size of horses.
One Easter Bank holiday Dad knocked back too much wine, and brought the machine upstairs. He projected a world where the men and women had rabbit ears and glasses. After another half a bottle he stepped inside. The bunny people scattered. He laughed and waved at us, and picked chocolate eggs from the tree.
The adults knew we were curious, but I do not think they realised quite how much we had to have a go. Dad was at a conference, and the key was in his bedroom drawer.
Portia spun through the worlds until they blurred on the wallI. Skulls and rainclouds mixed with blank office walls and yellow carpets. She settled on a hotel corridor lit by the burnt orange glow of emergency lighting. We squeezed in together, so close our hands touched.
The adults knew we were curious, but I do not think they realised quite how much we had to have a go. Dad was at a conference, and the key was in his bedroom drawer.
Portia spun through the worlds until they blurred on the wallI. Skulls and rainclouds mixed with blank office walls and yellow carpets. She settled on a hotel corridor lit by the burnt orange glow of emergency lighting. We squeezed in together, so close our hands touched.
The smell hit you first. Stale cream, with a synthetic note. Perhaps the result of different cleaning products with unknown ingredients. Portia was already off, shouting with excitement, and knocking on the walls. I followed after, trying to remember which paths she chosen down the maze of corridors. A left. A right. Another left or right.
Many of the room doors hung off their hinges. The lighting was just bright enough to show the dark corners of beds, and shapes that might be slumped figures or piles of clothes. Down in this part of the building the smell was like milk left in the sun. Portia had stopped shouting.
We walked past a room where several lanterns compensated for the lack of overhead illumination. A man wearing green pyjamas sat by the coffee table, a bandage taped around his head. He looked up, and crinkled his eyebrows.
‘How can there be children here?,’ he said.
I tried to remember if we had gone left or right down the most recent corridor. But the smell was overwhelming, and blocked out any hope of rational thought.
Line: One Easter Bank holiday Dad knocked back too much wine, and brought the machine upstairs.
