28 January 2009
Have spaceship, will travel
When I moved into this flat in 2005, I had no furniture, only a bed. Then I bought a fridge, and for a while I also had a hyperspace transporter in the middle of my lounge. Well, it didn't actually work, but I did go to stand inside it once or twice and imagined that I was going somewhere. It was made from the reassembled polystyrene mouldings that were used to protect the fridge during transport.
For the past four years I have been adding to my collection of polystyrene mouldings with the intention of mounting them on one or two of my bedroom walls so as to create the atmosphere of a cargo spaceship from a science fiction movie. This morning my collection got a big boost when I managed to salvage a particularly large piece of polystyrene with a matrix of bars. I don't think I deprived the trolley-pushers of their livelihood by removing it from under their noses, because they were looking for recyclable materials and items suitable for the scrapyard. I suspect that they thought I belonged on another planet, though, and in the light of the intended use of my find, such suspicion could be quite apt.
My cupboards and curtains don't look very spaceship-like. Nor does the hatbox on top of the one cupboard or the ironing board behind the door. But if a little girl can surround herself with images of unicorns and princesses and imagine herself transtported to a mythical bygone age even whilst sending an SMS via a 21st century gadget and being illuminated by an electrical light, then I too can be transported. In a transporter.