On SYDNEY

March 2nd

On SYDNEY

The camera pans down from space, downwards and to the right, for several seconds, towards the earth. On the earth is a large island, haphazardly shaped, and on the very Southeastern part of this island, which is more the size of a continent, are a mass of very bright lights. As we get closer and closer ever closer to our destiniation, we can see that we are in the centre of a sprawling city, and there is movement everywhere, rhythmic and sinuous. It is people, out on the streets, dancing, wearing fluorescet tube tops and acid wash jeans. Today is Party day, the day after Party Prep day, the day before Clean Up day, and the whole world is united as one. People are dressed in Crocadile Dundee hats and drinking Koala brand drinks.
This is Sydney, Australia, and the year is 2045. It is the eighties future.
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A gent wearing a Duran Duran style suit jacket over a bright blue t-shirt with garish sunglasses (even though it is night!) approaches a lady. The lady’s jeans are pulled up very high, the tails of her blouse are tied into a knot, and her hair is crimped and pulled into a pony tail. They sing in unison, in synthesized voices:
“How are you?
How are you today?
Do you want to go see a movie?
Maybe one with Michael J. Foxoxoxoxoxoxox?”
The end of their conversation reverbs into the night and off the leotards and bangles of those dancing around them.
“Aren’t you gladadadadadad?
We live in the eighties future?”
They ask each other.
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In 1993, a man named Kyle Turnblow realized that things were changing, that the fashions and the ideals and fads of the eighties were almost gone. So he did something about it: he travelled back in time to 1988, and constructed a machine that meant time went on but fashion stayed the same. Ronald Reagan lived forever, Saved by the Bell was always on and the Cold War was always on the brink of dying. It was the eighties future.
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Turns out that man in the jacket and shirt and sunglasses was Kyle, and the girl’s name was Stephanie, and they were the king and queen of the world. They did cocaine for fun, because its addictive properties had been eliminated by science. They looked up through their skyroof as they made love, and saw Ronald Reagan floating by in a spacesuit, giving them the thumbs up.
Kyle had no regrets, the world was everything he wanted it to be. The environment was saved, apartheid was basically over, and he had saved the whales himself. Kyle had the gift of not changing, he stayed true to himself and that meant he didn’t care that he’d been listening to Milli Vanilli for sixty years, it was umpteen times better than finding out the awful truth. After Kyle was finished making love to his queen, he floated up, naked, through his skyroof and into the sky. He exploded into a million pixels, and lodged himself within every man, woman and child on earth.
And then, the earth smiled, and drank a Coke.