She passed the rest of the day at the Magic Kingdom, taking a ferry
from the hotel's pier to the Victorian wrought-iron docks on the other
side of the little artificial lake. As she cleared the turnstiles into
Main Street, USA, her heart quickened. Kids rushed past her, chased by
their parents' laughing calls to slow down. Balloon sellers and
old-fashioned popcorn machines jostled for space in the crowd, and a
brass band was marching down the street in straw boaters and red
striped jackets, playing a Sousa march.
She ambled up the road, peering in the adorable little shop windows,
like the shops in a fancy casino, all themed artificial facades that
were, in back, all one shop, linked through the length of the street.
She reached the castle before she realized it, and saw that it was
shorter than it had appeared. Turning around and looking back down
Main Street, she saw that the trees lining the sides of the street had
been trimmed so they got progressively smaller from the gates to the
castle, creating a kind of false perspective line. She laughed now,
amused by the accomplishment of the little trompe l'oeil.
She squeezed past the hordes of Asian tourists taking precisely the
same picture of the castle, one after another, a phenomenon she'd
observed at other famous landmarks. For some Japanese shutterbugs, the
holiday photo experience was as formal as the Stations of the Cross,
with each picture of each landmark rigidly prescribed by custom and
unwritten law.
Now she was under the castle and headed for what her map assured her
was Fantasyland. Just as she cleared the archway, she remembered her
conversations with that Death Waits kid about Fantasyland: this was
the part that had been made over as a goth area, and then remade as
the Happiest Construction Site on Earth.
And so it was. The contrast was stark. From fairy castle to
green-painted construction sidings. From smiling, well-turned out
"castmembers" to construction workers with butt-crack-itis and grouchy
expressions. Fantasyland was like an ugly scar on the blemish-free
face of a Barbie doll.
She liked it.
Something about all that artifice, all that cunning work to cover up
all the bodies a company like Disney would have buried under its
manicured Main Street -- it had given her a low-level, tooth-grinding
headache, a kind of anger at the falseness of it all. Here, she could
see the bodies as they buried them.
Out came her camera and she went on the prowl, photographing and
photographing, seeking high ground from which to catch snaps over the
siding. She'd look at the satellite pics of this spot later.
Now she knew what her next project would be: she would document this
scar. She'd dig up the bodies.
Just for completeness' sake, she went on some of the rides. Her
super-fancy pass let her sail past the long lines of bored kids, angry
dads, exhausted moms. She captured their expressions with her camera.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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