You're at Skate 2000
Sydney is crumbling with Covid cases, there’s a shortage of tests, and the first episode of the year is a short one.
Read by the narrator, Mike Williams:
You’re at Skate 2000.
The music is radical. (hey the music is so radical)
This is the coolest place you’ve ever been in your eight years on earth.
You can’t wait to come here when you’re older.
The second-hand roller blades don’t hurt your feet.
You’re flying. It’s just like the ‘mall of America’ scene in Mighty Ducks Two.
A game begins. It’s limbo. You’re not good at this in shoes let alone in wheels.
How do some people skate backwards? “I’ll learn to skate backwards one day” you say to yourself. But you never do.
you decide that when you’re older you’d like to be the DJ at skate 2000.
You’re in the Volvo.
It’s grey and old like your grandparents. But it’s safe, like your grandparents.
AM radio is safe. Cassette tapes of John Denver and Grandma playing piano is safe.
Your grandparents explain the concept of time. The big hand is the minutes, the second hand does, seconds.
One day your dad will refuse to sell the Volvo no matter how many times it breaks down.
One day you’ll put a white ribbon on the bonnet and drive it as you leave your wedding.
You’re in the Lavalla room.
The teacher is angry because you got into a fight with someone.
You said that pets don’t go to heaven because they don’t have souls.
The other person in the fight was a teacher.
They’re going to put you in a different class now.
You are the problem.
You’ll be lucky to make it to the end of the year.
When you stand up to leave you look down at the plastic seat and see the outline of your bottom in sweat. It’s a hot day and the Lavalla room only had one air conditioner.
The teacher looks at it. You look at the teacher.
You sing Weather With You out of key at assembly on your last day.
“You can fight the sleep but not the dream”, you sing, off key.
You’re recording this in your apartment in January, 2022.
You’re cleaning up some old hard drives.
The rainbow lorikeets come to the kitchen window. They stick their beaks inside. You’re not allowed to feed them anymore.
You’re drinking Gatorade. Some of the guys in the indoor soccer team used to get it after a game. Mum never let you get it.
You watch the Harry Potter reunion, you cry.
You watch the episode of the office where Pam and Jim find out they’re pregnant, you cry.
You watch part of a documentary about Antarctica, you don’t cry but it’s interesting.
You can’t leave home.
You’re gunna be ok.
[Mike tries to sing ‘Weather With You’ by Crowded House but cannot find the right pitch and gives up]
