GUVENATOR

A dreadful mixture of searing heat and sticky Floridian humidity had swamped the theme park.  It was now, at approximately midday when the sun was at its highest, that the babbling gaggles of tourists learned not to moan about the so called ‘heat waves’ of their homelands.   As far as one could see, on every single crinkled, bushy or perfectly plucked brow trickled small threads of perspiration.  But for the most part, the park was deserted.  The majority of its visitors, who collectively spoke hundreds of different tongues, had retreated into the various franchised restaurants and themed cafés that were sprinkled across the premises, most in the shadow of hulking iron rollercoasters.    They relished delightedly in the icy cool solitude of air conditioned eating areas as they chomped on hamburgers and slurped on Diet Coke, blissfully unaware of anyone or anything but themselves. 

Naturally, some took advantage of the desolate midday heat: young, scantily clad couples with their wrap-around sunglasses and fashionably out-of-place hair would hurry hand in hand through near empty queues.  Closely behind would follow small and large families, often clubbed together like allies against the harsh world of theme park coordination.  The mothers, the directors of business so to speak, would be weighed down with backpacks, each crammed with an awkwardly made pack lunch and plasters and disinfectant wipes just in case and god-forbid.  The children would race ahead with popcorn in their hair and cotton candy on their fingers; they’d swing across the railings that were designed ineffectively to contain them, squealing and punching at one another.  Dawdling along behind would ne the fathers and husbands who would discuss, with no lack of vivacity, the game they watched before they left home.  Every now and again they’d nudge each other sneakily and point out the ‘hotties’ behind their wives’ backs. 

The most admirable of all in attendance was, of course, the workforce: the people who kept all processes working smoothly and who met the demands of ever-so-demanding public. 

As employees of such a fussy, gimmicky organisation, they were ordered by their seniors to dress as a shambolic collision between an ice-cream man, a pimp and a circus clown: red and white vertically striped shirts were tucked into three-quarter-length black trousers; they were held just out of gravity’s grasp by ridiculous fluorescent yellow braces.  The old-fashioned trouser-hitchers were decorated with hundreds of metal pin badges—cartoon characters and movie stars were emblazoned forever in iron.  And, as this was a theme park primarily for children, the workforce were required to wear long, stripy socks to cover any flesh that may be exposed due to the shortness of their shorts.  It seemed silly but, according to the Human Resources Department, five-year-olds often got a little randy over a twenty-one-year-old’s hairy ankles

No child would ever see past the falsity of such a place.  It was too well designed for something like that to happen—money grabbing big-wigs paid recovering alcoholics and gamblers an offensively small amount of money to dress up as popular film characters and walk around all day singing and dancing and smiling plastically.  They gave children, whose parents had paid so much for the family trip, a bizarre but wondrous illusion of life.  They made it seem that everything was simple and easy and just magical.  They made children believe that they could reach their happily ever after no matter what. 

It’s a shame, isn’t it, that they had to grow up.  Those poor little sods, who experienced year after year of let down and hurt and complex feelings before they realised that dreams didn’t come true. 

Not for everyone.  

© 2011 George Guven|georgeguven.tumblr.com