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Air Raid a dream by Paul Garner's subconscious There were facists at the cash machine. I guess I knew things were changing, what with the war and all, but that was when it first really came home to me. I'd gone to the supermarket to get some groceries. I had to get some money out first, but there were a couple of machines at the store. When I got to them there were a pair of queues and I joined the shorter one. But then I noticed the two thugs. Archetypically ugly, mean, in their grey bully-boy's boarding school uniforms. There was an old lady at the head of my queue but they were standing in front of the machine, so that she couldn't use it, gaping at her in leering condescension. She hobbled away as quickly as she could. I was furious. What right had they? The next person in line left as she had, and so it was that I found myself face to face with them. They were a motley pair, the two fascists. The larger one, he was fat with a bald-shaven head, lumpy features and a broad flat nose. It was hard to tell what age he was, wearing short pants but with the overgrown facial extremities of an older man. Grüber, I want to call him. His sidekick was a runty little appendix. Grüber, seeing I was not a frail old lady, squared up and looked me straight in the eye. I wasn't going to be intimidated by a social retard, I stared straight back. He squinted. I didn't blink for a long time. The righteous will is stronger. I took a step forward. He would have to react or back down. He pushed me. I pushed him back. It was like being in the playground once more. I had, in fact, intimidated him now, reversed the situation. But he couldn't lose face, allow himself to be humiliated. Not now, not while he had the uniform on. He pushed me again. I guess it was unfortunate for him, and even something of a surprise for me, that I was a black-belt in kung fu. I quietly unleashed a devastating series of blows on the pair of them. They stood there, dumb, not knowing what to do, their limited experience in roughing up the defenseless had little prepared them for my wrath. With vaguely comic effect I planted a firm boot square in the groin of the sidekick. He crumpled to the ground with a bewildered look on his bespectacled face, his larger companion already lying unconscious. The cash machines were safe to use once more. Thud - BOOM! I heard the explosion first, then the drone of engines overhead. Another explosion, closer. People started running for cover. I sheltered with some others in the shop. The bombing grew more intense, the ground shook, windows shattered. We huddled amongst shelves, shopping trolleys, promotional displays. It grew more intense, then gradually eased off. Bombs fell nearby but none hit our building. It gradually eased off until everything was quiet once more, almost eerily so. I exhaled. Then the drone of engines again, but different somehow. It was the counter-attack from our own side. I don't know if this makes sense, but our compatriots in fighter planes flew a low approach, strafing the ground and the buildings. Perhaps there was an invasion in progress and they were trying to root out enemy commandos in the streets. But we were caught in their path. We cowered now, in the wreckage of the supermarket, from this more perilous threat. I could see one of the planes coming directly towards us, its shadow rippling across the carpark, its lasermachineguns firing bolts of deadly, incandescent orange morse code that scored the asphalt with their murderous message. People were screaming, diving, crawling, trying to put any solid mass between themselves and the spitting destruction. Something hot and fast whizzed past my ear as I ran to a pillar, just wider than myself. There was a lull in the counter-attack. Across the street a building was on fire. Not everyone had made it. I was okay though. Someone appeared at the wide empty windowframe, asking if anyone knew the way to the train station. Everything around was bent and torn, injured. I knew I had to get away from here, from the frontline, the danger-zone. I offered to take him there. I wasn't sure exactly where the station was but I figured I could find it, and it was as good a way as any out of the city. By the side of the road was a car. The left front wheel was sprained, at an odd angle, and part of the roof was missing, part caved in. It was a purple Holden Torana. I ran over and got in the driver's side as the fighter planes came around for another attack, determined not to become another victim of friendly fire. I looked to see if the keys were in it. They weren't. My companion got in the passenger side and hotwired it, literally in the blink of an eye, I didn't see how. I was glad to hear the engine roar into life, putting it in gear I stepped on the gas. The old aussie six pulled away powerfully and the damaged front wheel didn't affect the steering too badly. I drove as fast as I could, through suburban streets littered with smoking hulks and debris. I drove randomly, without any idea where I had to go. We careened and swerved along to the reassuring thrum of this reliable old motor. Bulletproof, they used to say. A fallen street-lamp blocked the road ahead. I rode up on the curb, then had to avoid a concrete bollard and found myself crashing through wire-mesh fencing and into a disused grassy lot. We bumped around dodging gnarled tree stumps and old rusted barrels, and I was thankful for the car's old fashioned heavy-steel construction and long-travel suspension. We crashed through another fence and back on to the road. Eventually my random striving brought us to the outskirts of town. I'd seen signs for the sea port, for a convention centre, for various other landmarks and hubs, but not for the train station yet, so we pushed on. We were cruising down a road on the rural borders of the city when the engine started to sputter and falter. Out of gas. I could see a gas station up ahead, which we coasted to. A bright yellow and red Shell station. We pulled up but the attendant came out and waved to us, calling, "Sin, sin." The Spanish word for 'without'. They were out of gas too. I coaxed another mile or so out of the fumes in the tank and we came to another Shell station. As we coasted up to a pump I could see they too had 'Sin' signs up. Next door though was a Texaco, and I could see at least three cars filling up at the pumps. Trust the Americans to have gas, I thought. Back Copyright © 2002 - Paul Garner.

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