r j dent – pretty bubbles

        
        I got there early, wanting to find somewhere to stand that would give me a good view. I thought I’d be there first, but several people who’d had the same idea were already there. I found a spot just to the left of the park gates, which I thought offered the best view of the route. There was also a bench there, so I sat on it while I waited for the procession. 
        Thirty minutes to go.
        More people arrived over the next few minutes and the pavement was becoming more and more crowded. 
        A man with a bubble machine strapped to his back arrived without making much of a fuss. He put a wooden box on the pavement at the end of the bench I was sitting on, unslung the bubble machine and put it on top of the box. He looked at me.
        “Do you mind if I sit on the end of the bench to work this?” he asked.
        I shook my head and moved up.
        He sat down and took a blue plastic water bottle out of his pocket. He unscrewed the cap and poured about half of the bottle’s contents onto the tank of the bubble machine. He pressed a small button on the machine and it hummed into life. He’d screwed the bottle cap back on and put the bottle on the ground next to the box before the first bubble appeared out of a metal tube on the top of the machine. The bubble was a small, rainbow-patterned sphere, a lot smaller than I’d thought it would be. It detached itself from the tube, floated up into the air and burst.
        The man saw me looking.
        “They get bigger once the machine warms up,” he explained.
        I nodded.
        “By the time the procession gets here, they’ll be huge.”
        The next bubble was slightly bigger. It popped out of the tube and floated up into the air. I watched it meander lazily into the sky. The next bubble appeared almost immediately. It was twice the size of the one I’d just watched float away.
        I could hear the crowd getting louder. There were more people. I heard a few exclamations of delight. I stood up. I stood on the bench and looked along the street. There was no sign yet of the motorcade. 
        The bubbles were coming out of the machine in a steady stream now.
I stepped down and sat down again. I watched the man pour the rest of the bottle’s contents into the bubble machine’s tank. He stood up. He held the empty bottle out towards me.
        “I’m out,” he said. He pointed into the park. “I need to go in there and refill this. Or buy another bottle of water. Would you watch my machine for me?” 
        I didn’t want to, but I didn’t see how I could refuse.
        He must have seen my reluctance.
        “I’ll be two, three minutes, tops. The café’s just here, inside the gates.”
        “Okay.”
        “Thank you,” he said. He paused. “It probably won’t happen, but if the machine stops, would you just press that big green button on the top? Press it down. It’s the main power button. It’ll just start straight back up. I’d hate there to be no bubbles as the procession goes by. Would you do that?”
        “The green button on the top? Not the green button that’s lower down; not the one that you pressed to start it when you got here?”
        He shook his head.
        “No, that’s the starter button. It’s one-use only. The top button’s the auxiliary power starter. It’s connected to the battery. That’s the one to press down. Just that top one. Not any of the others, or you’ll stall it. Okay?”
        “Okay,” I said. “The top green button.”
        “And press it down,” the man said. “It’ll probably be fine, anyway. It never stops. It’ll be just my luck it stops working today, just as the procession goes past.”
        He turned towards the park gates. 
        “Right. Back in three minutes,” he said. “Thanks.”
        And he hurried into the park.
        I looked at his machine as it churned out bubbles in a steady stream. The best ones were now almost a metre across. They floated beautifully. As I got up on the bench to look along the road, I heard someone in the crowd say: “Pretty bubbles.” I couldn’t see who had said it. The crowd was too dense now. 
        The first car was moving along slowly. People were cheering. This was it – a moment in history. Something that would never be repeated. I stayed standing on the bench, enjoying the height advantage, able to see over the heads of the immense crowd that lined both sides of the road.
        I only noticed that the machine had stopped working when the bubbles stopped floating past my eyeline.
        I jumped down and listened. The crowd was cheering very loudly, so it was difficult for me to hear anything at all, let alone the faint whirr of a bubble machine motor.
        I realised then that if I stayed on the ground, messing about with the machine, I’d miss much of the procession as it went by. I’d got there early because I wanted to see it. I had no intention of missing any of it because of someone else’s faulty bubble machine. It wasn’t my problem.
        I stood on the bench again and watched the cars approaching. They were almost level with me now. 
        As I watched them moving towards me, a chilling thought occurred to me. 
What if the bubble machine was a bomb? An explosive device? What if the man was a terrorist and he’d set up his explosive device, found his dupe (me) and made his escape, leaving me to be the inadvertent trigger man?
        I looked at the machine. It just sat there, on top of the box, its motor still and silent, not making any bubbles. I have no real interest in bubbles. I can take them or leave them. If I didn’t restart the machine, it was unlikely anyone would miss them. I’d keep an eye on the machine, as I’d promised I would, but I wouldn’t try and restart it. When – if – the man came back, I’d simply say I’d forgotten to restart it in the excitement of the moment. Why would he mind? 
        And then I laughed at my own stupidity. Obviously it was a bubble machine. I’d seen the bubbles coming out of it. I’d seen the man fill the machine’s tank with a bottle of water. I’d watched a man make bubbles and now I was making him a terrorist.
        The human mind is incredible.
        The cheers of the crowd were loud and sustained now. In another thirty seconds, or thereabouts, the lead car would drive past. I’d heard that the ‘important’ car was the third one in the convoy. Looking along the road, I could see that the third car was a gold vehicle. It looked like a gold Rolls Royce. It probably was.
        I looked at the machine again. I sighed, wishing I hadn’t promised the man that I’d restart his machine if it stopped.
        And then I had an idea. 
        The big green button on the top was right next to my foot. All I had to do in order to press it down was to stand on it. If it started, my obligation was fulfilled; if it failed to start, then my obligation was still fulfilled. I could maintain my advantageous view, watch the procession and most likely enjoy a few bubbles too. 
        The first car drove past slowly. The cheers were deafening. The second car drew level. The cheering was uncomfortably loud. I put my fingers in my ears. 
It had been more than three minutes. I looked at the park gates. There was no sign of the man. Perhaps there was a queue. In less than ten seconds I’d either be a procession watcher, a bubble-maker or an assassin – and I had no idea which.
        The second car drove slowly past. Now the crowd was going wild, waving, cheering, loud even though I had my fingers in my ears.
        The front of the gold car drew level with me as I put my foot over the green button. 
        I took my finger out of my right ear and waved. Then I pressed my foot down.



R J DENT is a poet, novelist, translator, essayist, and short story writer. As a renowned translator of European literature, R J Dent has published modern English translations of The Songs of Maldoror (Le Comte de Lautréamont), Speculations (Alfred Jarry), Poems & Fragments (Alcaeus); The Dead Man (Georges Bataille) and The Flowers of Evil (Charles Baudelaire), as well as works by the Marquis de Sade, Louis Aragon, Antonin Artaud, Paul Éluard, Maurice Heine, Pierre Louÿs, Arthur Rimbaud, Maurice Rollinat and Tarjei Vesaas.

As a poet and novelist, R J Dent is the author of a poetry collection, Moonstone Silhouettes; a novel, Myth, and a short story collection, Gothiques and Fantastiques.

R J Dent’s official website is www.rjdent.com



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