Uncommon Places was commissioned by the Melbourne Fringe Festival to present sixteen stories of eight different commuters via embossed labelling tape across the glass panes of a Flinders Street Station tram platform. One side of the platform presented stories of arriving commuters, while the other side revealed stories of these same people as they returned home for the day, offering insights to their unique and shared experiences.
***
Betty exhaled and braced herself for the walk up Elizabeth. For six hours a day, five days a week Betty palmed and elbowed the tension from Sprite-white bodies. Frustration from bosses lived in the shoulders. Missed opportunities lived in the feet.
***
No matter how much turmeric she rubbed on her skin Preeti still couldn’t lighten her heritage. Her grandmother hoped a trip to the Vic Market and its organic produce could do what conventional couldn’t.
***
For thirty years Janos worked at a cement factory and came home with 900 a week after tax and nose bleeds. Now as Janos stared at Australian Standards glass, he dreamt of fences made from sausages.
***
A stench of zombies. A smear of lawyers.
Kano wondered what the collective noun was for a collective of nouns. Silver fingers wrote ‘nuance’ in a sketchbook.
