conjure

Visual Postcards I - supermarket.

The corner supermarket is empty. The back of the store, each of the five isles are empty, the stock is piled on the shelves.

The little girl walks in, stops, leans on her arms on the counter.

The shopkeeper is sitting on a stool back from the counter. He wipes his forehead, a newspaper rolled up in his hand. He opens the newspaper again to read.

The girl is looking at the man. She stretches on her tip-toes trying and leans forward on the counter tto straighten a pile of messy flyers. In moments, she falls back onto flat feet, defeated.

The girl begins to walk away as the shopkeeper coughs a deep, cancerous cough. He wipes his brow again. He takes a sip of his cup of tea. Puts his paper down.

He looks out the window.

A fan is blowing softly from the roof towards the isles.

The girl walks up the far isle, passed the magazines, the hair products, the nappies, the insect spray, the toilet paper. She corners to the right at the end and walks behind the five isles to the last one. The lino is cold on her feet as she runs back up the counter. She passes the refrigerators, the vegetables in boxes, the loaves of bread.

The girl walks passed the counter. She looks at the shopkeeper, he is still looking out the window.
She walks out the front door.

The girl stands in the doorway for a moment and breathes out, bored. She turns and runs off to the right.

The shop has a sign on the roof "Four-Square".

The carparks on the street out the front are empty.

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Visual Postcards I - my local supermarket.


From the back of the store, each of the five isles are empty. The roof is far above the top of the stock.

The isle on the right hand wall has decaying linoleum on the ground. The pattern slants to the left as it stretches up the isle to the register at the end.

At the back of the isle, there are toilet paper rolls on the shelf; there are only three different brands.

In the centre of the isle there are insect sprays, nappies and women's products. There are hair nets, bobby pins, hair gels and sprays. The shelves are only a metre and a half tall.

There are magazines at the front close to the counter. The shelf has a four rows with Country Living in the top corner at the end of the row.

The counter is short step from the magazine rack.

Behind the counter there is a high stool, far back against the wall. There is a bench right next the stool, where a cup of tea sits, and an open newspaper.

There is a pile of flyers on the counter. A draft is lifting up the corner of the top flyer. There is a rock paper weight keeping the pile in place.

There is a donation tin for the local hall on the counter. There is a tray of gingerbread men and a stack of homemade tea-towels for Only $2 each.

A fan on the roof blows away from the counter. The floor is worn in front of the counter, with several light scuff marks that blend with the slanting linoleum.

The front door is behind the floor space, next to the far left wall. There are small, light tyre marks trailing along the linoleum from the doorway to a shelf with loaves of bread piled up high. Next to the shelves of bread are boxes down on floor, full of vegetables.

Next to the boxes, stand the refrigerators buzzing and crackling. The cheeses are chilling, and the milk, the yogurt, and the dips.

Moving towards the back, there are packaged meats piled five items high. Stacked to the front edge of the shelf.

The freezers are next to the fridges, close to the rear of the store. The larger meat deposits are stored there, the bulky five kilogram bags. It's hard to see the bulky meats though; the freezer lids are almost frosted over.

There is a exit door at the back past the end of the freezers. It is a large, plain wooden door painted light green. There is an unlocked padlock next to the handle, dangling lightly from left to right.

A rubber band is attached to a nail on the door above the padlock, and stretches over to another nail on the wall next to the door.

The door is blowing in and out, straining on the rubber band.

There is a soft, wooden, thudding sound mixing with the breeze.


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Visual Postcards II - Fury.

INT EVENING

Following the back of a man's head as he pounds his feet along a hallway inside a medium-sized home. He stops at the fourth door on the right and breaths in, and then out, his eyes close.

We see his face, red, intense concentration, his brow furrowed and his lips poised. He is sweating from his hairline all the way to his chin.

He opens his eyes and lets out a vocal burst of aggression, shoving the door open with his right hand.

There is no-one in the room.

He stomps in, raging from one side to the other lifting up pieces of women's clothing debris - a bra, a singlet, until he sees a man's shoe.

He leans down. He holds the shoe up to his face and reads the insignia on the side.

"VolCom 2008 - Youth Against Establishment"

High heel footsteps are heard in the hallway.

The man swings his head up, his body lurches into an upright position. With his shoulders hunching forward, he heads back towards the door.

The woman is coming in the other way.

Startled, she stops dead when she sees him. She looks at his shirt, covered in dirt. She looks at his pants, and then notices the shoe in his hand.

The woman takes a small step back with one foot, putting her arms up, beginning to explain that her brother came over.

The man strikes her face hard with the shoe letting out an loud vocal burst.

The woman's flowing hair whips over the front of her face as she stumbles several steps in the direction that he pushed her.

With her lips closed tight, her eyes screaming, she looks up at him.

He reaches forward and grabs her hair. He holds her for a moment, and then smashes her crown against a painting on the wall.

Blood begins to drip down the image in the painting.