Song slivers arrive in shipping and receiving, between photo-cutter roar and dry-mounting rumble. With my mind, I add the sounds together and turn the nearly inaudible music from Aileen's radio into Marvin Gaye -- regardless of what's playing I hear Sexual Healing.
Mike, a young guy from the digital department, comes to look out the window. Wincing at the brightness, he fingers the paper white orchid. I turn away. He asks me, "What's your favourite movie?"
"Harold and Maude," I say. "It's about a suicidal young guy who falls in love with an eccentric old woman."
"What's your second favourite movie?"
"Picnic At Hanging Rock," I say. "It's about some Australian school girls who get lost in the outback."
Mike lays his head on the postage scale.
"Ten pounds ten ounces," I say.
Maria talks about her new roommate "He's white. He's single. He's fifty, but he's circumcised." She looks at me. I'm the only Caucasian in the room. "Do you prefer cut or uncut?" Maria asks.
In my mind I see the penises of recent dalliances, dicks and cocks of old relationships cut, uncut. Maria and the other Filipinas are waiting for my answer, for my preference.
Maria says, "Uncut is ugly."
Aileen says, "How do you know?"
Maria says, "I've seen a photo."
The dark side of Maria. We are nibbling on Kirk's banana bread. Kirk is the Jethro Bodine handyman of the photo lab. He's been phoning his mother across three time zones to get her recipes. He brings baked goods to work, on the bus, triple plastic-wrapped. Pies, cookies, biscuits -- he wants a reaction. He wants a reaction from the dark side of Maria.
credits
from The Observer,
released June 17, 2013
Jean Smith vocals. David Lester guitar. Additional instruments by Jean Smith. Recorded by Jordan Koop at The Hive, Vancouver, Canada in 2006.
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