Emily in the photobooth

Emily, determined to get to New York City, needed a passport photo. England was dull, but America. You have only to walk a couple of blocks in New York City and something was bound to happen to you or so she had been told. She made her way through the early morning travelers to the centre of the Railway Station foyer.

Near the bookstall, opposite the florists, stood a lone, dejected photo booth. The commuters had been ludicrously avoiding it, leaving at least a ten foot gap between their over-ambitious workaholic bodies and its graffitied exterior. Perhaps the fact it had been visited by a Manchester United supporter, a Sex Pistols fan, a primitive poet who wrote vulgar limericks and a love sick teenager who had spray painted 'Kay 4 Dave' exactly twenty five times in green and black, deterred the weary travelers from stepping too close. The defacement had caused a taboo to land above the flat metal roof. Emily doubtfully approached, sensing that something was wrong.

'Very strange,' she thought.

Emily neared the curtained doorway. She felt she had entered the forbidden zone. The photographs depicting the faces of satisfied customers invited her inside, informing her that for two pounds she too could be ... satisfied?

Nobody noticed her slip into the booth, nobody cared. The interior surrounded her with its sickly sweet overbearing cheese-cake and fantastic atmosphere. She looked around, taking in the brain-washing light. A pretty, pretty face sneered down from a pale space about the glass shrine of the camera.

There were five instructions.

1. adjust the seat

2. select appropriate background

3. check image

4. insert money

5. prepare for photograph when red light appears

The seat was blue. Not a modest blue, but a bold Mediterranean sea blue, interspersed with arrows, questioning how the seat should be. Larger, smaller, lower, higher, more comfortable?

'Too many arrows,' thought Emily.

She turned the stool clockwise. The stool grew, Emily shrank. She was pressed against the wall, still it grew. She crouched in the corner, it grew.

An emergency chord hung under the seat. Perhaps if Emily crawled to the foot of the stool and tugged at the metal rope ... perhaps ... she moved, pulled the rope and the seat stopped growing. It pounded back to its original size and position and hit Emily's head rendering her unconscious.

Emily woke suddenly. She felt physically weak and emotionally drained and what is more she had a headache. She dragged herself onto her feet, dusted herself and sat down. She turned her head to see the background curtains. Purple, pink, blue, yellow, green, orange, red, lilac, lime and turquoise.

'Too many colours,' thought Emily, feeling ill.

She saw herself running through the different colours, drawing the multicoloured curtains behind her as she ran. Perhaps pink, but then again the green looks so delicious and the turquoise. She pondered over this difficult choice, changing the curtains and changing her mind. Curtains swished about her like the skirts of can-can dancers, reminding her of Moulin Rouge.

Psychedelic petticoats pirouetted in front of her and made her dizzy. She closed her eyes, they were still there and she felt sick. She had to decide. How about lilac? Blue is beautiful. It was an impossible task.

'Lime,' she screamed.

The whole booth turned puce. Emily felt sicker and switched her portable radio on.

Something decadent from the sixties assaulted the air waves, draining the unnatural colour from Emily and the photo booth. The background curtain became a bright shade of lime.

Emily looked at herself in the glass. A clear skinned girl with platinum blonde hair, ice blue eyes, a cute nose and dreamy lips stared innocently back. Emily came to the conclusion that she did not look herself.

'Marilyn Monroe?' she pondered.

She was saddened by the transformation, but the image soon faded to someone a little less healthy to look at.

Emily inserted her money, one two pound coin. The machine was not happy. It screeched, 'reject', and spat out the coin. Emily collected it and inserted four, out of date, foreign coins in to the fifty pence piece slot. This was usual and the machine was content.

The red light flared insolently. The camera clicked and flashed and asked Emily if she would not mind the fan being switched on.

'Toss your head back,' it said. 'Laugh,' it said. 'Look natural' it said. 'Pout,' it said. 'Beautiful,' it lied. What the hell did it think it was?

Emily was carried away, but the camera became angry. How could it make anything of a girl with acne and a crooked nose? She had a problem, her jaw was too wide.

'I can't help being myself,' she pleaded, knowing this would never do, 'cosmetic surgery?'

Emily wanted to go home, but the camera would not stop and insults filled her head like stress factors.

'You've got to look good,' it demanded.

The seat spun, the curtains smothered her, the machine spat at her, the camera flickered. Emily sat in the midst of this chaos, out of her depth in the craziness of it all.

'I'm going mad,' thought Emily, trying to remember if she had eaten anything funny that morning. It didn't matter, nothing mattered.

Five minutes later Emily emerged, bleary eyed and bewildered. The photographs were plain and unattractive, she had forgotten to smile. America would have to wait. Emily stepped back into the modern day turmoil and paled into insignificance.