Sydney to London Without a Plane by Lorna_North

Observations of the Unemployed

I have had two weeks off work. Well, why not? What is the point of being a writer if you can't pretentiously stop working to walk around a city and observe the minutiae?

 

Sydney is my muse and therefore I must get to know her inside out. With the assurance that I have work lined up for next week, I set this week aside for meanderings through the mind, and the tourist industry.

 

During my research into Sydneysiders and their habitat I've developed this awful but quite amusing tendency of seeing myself from an external eye, like I am watching myself on screen. 

 

I've started to do odd things like dramatically pause in front of an artwork that takes my breath away, adopting an expression that would suggest I had found the meaning of the entire earth's existence in the aquiline nose of a portrait.  

 

Or strutting down the street with a take-away cappuccino, Ray Bans on, with a swaggering walk like an LA superstar; or my favourite, waltzing through the botanical gardens with my arms outstretched like Maria from The Sound of Music. 

 

But luckily this consciousness isn't just restricted to myself. I have been observing all sorts on these glorious days of lurking about the city. I've had conversations with anyone willing to talk to me and I've found myself noticing things about Sydney that you just don't see when you are in the bubble of a day job.

 

I discovered a plant in the park that smells like a combination of strawberries and dog poo and I saw the world's smallest cockroach. I also discovered that if you stand on the bridge in Rushcutters Bay Park and lean against the railing whilst joggers cross it, it feels like you are on a trampoline and I was also surprised to see that if you lie with your face flat against the grass, there is that shimmering effect of heat rising as it does on baking hot American highways. Even though its really chilly.

 

Today I sat for hours outside the Anzac Memorial and watched a group of children on a school trip. They were being rounded up like cattle in a field by a stressed male teacher who looked more like a business man than someone qualified to be herding children.

 

I wasn't alone as I observed this party. A lame pigeon with arthritic toes came and perched next to me and together we watched. That was until one of the children came bounding up to us.

 

"I've noticed your pigeon is injured" she said.

"yes, it's a cruel world out there, but old pige, he's doing alright" I replied.

"But can he fly?" she anxiously asked

"yeah, but he prefers to just sit and watch"

"oh" she said "well, I hope he gets better soon"

 

The pigeon cocked his head and looked at me with one big orange eye. I knew how he felt. We had been the silent observers but suddenly we were the ones being noticed. It felt weird. Pige flew off and I walked on to find something else to stare at.