The bidders who have assembled for the auction of the

magic slippers bear little resemblance to your usual

saleroom crowd. The Auctioneers have publicised the
event widely and are prepared for all comers. People
venture out but rarely nowadays; nevertheless, and
rightly, the Auctioneers believed this prize would tempt
us from our bunkers. High feelings are anticipated.
Accordingly, in addition to the standard facilities pro-
vided for the comfort and security of the more notable
personages, extra-large bronze cuspidors have been
placed in the vestibules and toilets, for the use of the
physically sick; teams of psychiatrists of varying disci-
plines have been installed in strategically located neo-
Gothic confessional booths, to counsel the sick at heart.

Most of us nowadays are sick.

There are no priests. The Auctioneers have drawn a

line. The priests remain in other, nearby buildings,
buildings with which they are familiar, hoping to deal
with any psychic fall-out, any insanity overspill.
Units of obstetricians and helmeted police SWAT

teams wait out of sight in side alleys in case the

excitement leads to unexpected births or deaths. Lists of
next of kin have been drawn up and their contact

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numbers recorded. A supply of strait-jackets has been of electricity into the collagen-implanted lips of the
laid in. glass-kisser, terminating her interest in the proceedings.
It is an unpleasantly whiffy moment, but it fails to
See: behind bullet-proof glass, the ruby slippers sparkle. deter a second aficionado from the same suicidal act of
We do not know the limits of their powers. We suspect devotion. When we learn that this moron was the lover
that these limits may not exist. of the first fatality, we rather wonder at the mysteries of
love, whilst reaching once again for our perfumed
Movie stars are here, among the bidders, bringing their handkerchiefs.
glossy, spangled auras to the saleroom. Movie-star
auras, developed in collaboration with masters of The cult of the ruby slippers is at its height. A fancy
Applied Psychics, are platinum, golden, silver, bronze. dress party is in full swing. Wizards, Lions, Scarecrows
Certain genre actors specialising in villainous roles are are in plentiful supply. They jostle crossly for position,
surrounded by auras of evil - livid green, mustard stamping on one another's feet. There is a scarcity of
yellow, inky red. When one of us collides with a star's Tin Men on account of the particular discomfort of the
priceless (and fragile) aura, he or she is instantly costume. Witches bide their time on the bakons and
knocked to the floor by a security team and hustled out to galeries of the Grand Saleroom, living gargoyles with, in
the waiting paddy-wagons. Such incidents slightly many cases, high credit ratings. One corner is occu-
reduce the crush in the Grand Saleroom. pied entirely by Totos, several of whom are copulating
enthusiastically, obliging a rubber-gloved janitor to
The memorabilia junkies are out in predictable force, separate them so as to avoid giving public offence. He
and now with a ducking movement of the head one of does this with great delicacy and taste.
them applies her desperate lips to the slippers' trans-
parent cage, setting off the state-of-the-art defence We, the public, are easily, lethally offended. We have
system whose programmers have neglected to teach it come to think of taking offence as a fundamental right.
about the relative harmlessness of such a gesture of We value very little more highly than our rage, which
adoration. The system pumps a hundred thousand volts gives us, in our opinion, the moral high ground. From

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uperb
fistfuls of canapes from trays borne upon the s
this high ground we can shoot down at our enemies with
and inflict heavy fatalities. We take pride in our short palms of A-list caterers. Sushi is eaten by them
whose
fuses. Our anger elevates, transcends. impressive quantities of wasabi sauce, to
mper-
inflammatory powers the hoboes' innards seem i
brief
vious. SWAT teams are summoned and after a
Around the - let us say - shrine of the ruby-sequinned ative
battle involving the use of rubber bullets and sed
slippers, pools of saliva have been forming. There are uncon-
darts the tramps are removed, clubbed into
those of us who lack restraint, who drool. The jump- eposited
sciousness and driven away. They will be d
suited Latino janitor moves amongst us, a pail in one that
hand and a squeegee mop in the other. We admire some distance beyond the city limits, out there in
vertis-
and are grateful for his talent for self-effacement. He smoking no-man's-land surrounded by giant ad
ild
removes our mouth waters from the floor without caus- ing hoardings into which we venture no more. W
ncheon.
ing any loss of face on our part. dogs will gather around them, eager for lu
These are uncompromising times.

Opportunities for encountering the truly miraculous tors,

Political refugees are at the auction: conspira
are limited in our Nietzschean, relativistic universe. andit
Behaviourist philosophers and quantum scientists deposed monarchs, defeated factions, poets, b
erets,
crowd around the magic shoes. They make indecipher- chieftains. Such figures no longer wear the black b
reatcoats
able notes. the pebble-lensed spectacles and enveloping g
s in boxy
of yesteryear, but strike resplendent attitude
pan-
silken jackets and high-waisted Japanese couture
Exiles, displaced persons of all sorts, even homeless earing
taloons. The women sport toreador jackets b
tramps have turned up for a glimpse of the impossible rt. One
sequinned representations of great works of a
They have emerged from their subterranean hollows veral
beauty parades Guernica on her back, while se
and braved the bazookas, the Uzi-armed gangs high on f War
others wear glittering scenes from the Disasters o
crack or smack or ice, the smugglers, the emptiers of
sequence by Francisco Goya.
houses. The tramps wear stenchy jute ponchos and the
Incandescent as they are in their suits of lights,
hawk noisily into the giant potted yuccas. They grab

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 EAST, WEST AT THE AUCTION OF THE RUBY SLIPPERS

female political refugees fail to eclipse the ruby slippers, `Money insists on democracy,' the liberal Auctioneers
and huddle with their male comrades in small hissing insist. 'Anyone's cash is as good as anyone else's.' The
bunches, periodically hurling imprecations, ink-pellets, fundamentalists fulminate from soap-boxes con-
spitballs and paper darts across the salon at rival clus- structed of special, sanctified wood. They are ignored,
ters of emigres. The guards at the exits crack their but some senior figures present speak ominously of the
bullwhips idly and the politicals control themselves. thin end of the wedge.

We revere the ruby slippers because we believe they can Orphans arrive, hoping that the ruby slippers might
make us invulnerable to witches (and there are so many transport them back through time as well as space (for, as
sorcerers pursuing us nowadays); because of their our equations prove, all space machines are time
powers of reverse metamorphosis, their affirmation of machines as well): they hope to be reunited with their
a lost state of normalcy in which we have almost ceased deceased parents by the famous shoes.
to believe and to which the slippers promise us we can Men and women of dubious character are present —
return; and because they shine like the footwear of the untouchables, outcasts. The security forces deal
gods. brusquely with many of these.

Disapproving critiques of the fetishising of the slippers `Home' has become such a scattered, damaged,
are offered by religious fundamentalists, who have been various concept in our present travails. There is so
allowed to gain entry by virtue of the extreme liberalism much to yearn for. There are so few rainbows any more.
of some of the Auctioneers, who argue that a civilised How hard can we expect even a pair of magic shoes to
saleroom must be a broad church, open, tolerant. The work? They promised to take us home, but are
fundamentalists have openly stated that they are metaphors of homeliness comprehensible to them,
interested in buying the magic fOotwear only in order are abstractions permissible? Are they literalists, or will
to burn it, and this is not, in the view of the liberal they permit us to redefine the blessed word?
Auctioneers, a reprehensible programme. What price Are we asking, hoping for, too much?
tolerance if the intolerant are not tolerated also? As our numberless needs emerge from their redoubts

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irection
and press in upon the electrified glass, will the shoes, us would choose to travel in the opposite d
ase in
like the Grinuns' ancient flatfish, lose patience with our (though there are persuasive reports of an incre
ever-growing demands and return us to the hovels of such migrations latterly).
tion
our discontents? I shelve such disputes for the moment. The Auc is
about to begin.
The presence of imaginary beings in the Saleroom may
ale, and
be the last straw. Children from nineteenth-century It is necessary that I speak about my cousin G
Let me
Australian paintings are here, whining from their her habit of moaning loudly while making love.
y life,
ornate, gilded frames about being lost in the immensity be frank: my cousin Gale was and is the love of m
sed
of the Outback. In blue smocks and ankle socks they and even now that we have parted I am easily arou
ten to
gaze into rain forests and red deserts, and tremble. by the mere memory of her erotic noisiness. I has
ing
A literary character, condemned to an eternity of add that except for this volubility there was noth
I may
reading the works of Dickens to an armed madman in a abnormal about our love-making, nothing, if
eply,
jungle, has sent in a written bid. put it thus, fictional. Yet it satisfied me deeply, de
ent of
On a television monitor, I notice the frail figure of an especially when she chose to cry out at the mom
've
alien creature with an illuminated fingertip. penetration: 'Home, boy! Home, baby, yes - you
This permeation of the real world by the fictional is come home!'
a symptom of the moral decay of our post-millennial One day, sad to relate, I came home to find her in the
ed
culture. Heroes step down off cinema screens and arms of a hairy escapee from a caveman movie. I mov
h
marry members of the audience. Will there be no end out the same day, weeping my way down the street wit
led
to it? Should there be more rigorous controls? Is the my portrait of Gale in the guise of a tornado crad in
State employing insufficient violence? We debate such my arms and my collection of old Pat Boone 78 r.p.m.
questions often. There can be little doubt that a large records in a rucksack on my back.
majority of us opposes the free, unrestricted migration This happened many years ago.
nd
of imaginary beings into an already damaged reality, For a time after Gale dumped me I was bitter a
er
whose resources diminish by the day. After all, few of would reveal to our social circle that she had lost h

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virginity at the age of fourteen in an accident involvin g a the sentimentality of the images of the dying spaceman
craft
defective shooting-stick; but vindictiveness did not Nevertheless, the cameras inside his marooned
s slow
satisfy me for long. continued to send us poignant pictures of hi
duced
Since those days I have dedicated myself to her descent into despair, his low-gravity, weight-re
memory. I have made of myself a candle at her temple. death.
r's
I am aware that, after all these years of separation I watched my cousin Gale as she watched the ba
now that
and non-communication, the Gale I adore is not TV. She did not see me watching her, did not k
entirely a real person. The real Gale has become con- she had become my chosen programme.
on-
fused with my re-imagining of her, with my private The condemned man on another planet — the c
ey
elaboration of our continuing life together in an alter- demned man on TV — began to sing a squawky medl
ying
native universe devoid of ape-men. The real Gale may by of half-remembered songs. I was reminded of the d
ey.
now be beyond our grasp, ineffable. computer, Hal, in the old film zoo': A Space Odyss
d.
Hal sang 'Daisy, Daisy' as it was being unplugge
nt
I caught a glimpse of her recently. She was at the far end The Martian — for he was now a permanent reside
ns of
of a long, dark, subterranean bar-room guarded by of that planet — offered us his spaced-out renditio
veral
freelance commandos bearing battlefield nuclear `Swanee', 'Show Me the Way to Go Home' and se
lders
weapons. There were Polynesian snacks on the counter numbers from The Wizard of Oz; and Gale's shou
and beers from the Pacific rim on tap: Kirin, Tsingtao, began to shake. She was crying.
Swan. I did not go across to comfort her.
At that time many television channels were devoted
ruby
to the sad case of the astronaut stranded on Mars I first heard about the upcoming auction of the
ce to
without hope of rescue, and with diminishing supplies slippers the very next morning, and resolved at on
le: I
of food and breathable air. Official spokesmen told us buy them, whatever the cost. My plan was simp
y. If
of the persuasive arguments for the abrupt cancel- would offer the miracle-shoes to Gale in all humilit
o
lation of the space exploration budget. We found these she wished, I would say, she could use them to travel t
arguments powerful; influential voices complained of Mars and bring the spaceman back to Earth.

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ERS

Perhaps I might even click the heels together three tially benevolent supervision of the Auctioneers, their
times, and win back her heart by murmuring, in soft security dogs and SWAT teams, we engage in a battle of
reminder of our wasted love, There's no place like wits and wallets, a war of nerves.
home. There is a purity about our actions here, and also an
aesthetically pleasing tension between the vast com-
You laugh at my desperation. Ha! Go tell a drowning plexity of the life that turns up, packaged into lots, to go
man not to clutch at straws. Go ask a dying astronaut under the hammer, and the equally immense sim-
not to sing. Come here and stand in my shoes. What plicity of our manner of dealing with this life.
was it the Cowardly Lion said? Put 'em up. Put 'em We bid, the Auctioneers knock a lot down, we pass
uuuuup. I'll fight you with one hand tied behind my on.
back. I'll fight you with my eyes closed.
Scared, huh? Scared? All are equal before the justice of the gavels: the pave-
ment artist and Michelangelo, the slave girl and the
The Grand Saleroom of the Auctioneers is the beating Queen.
heart of the earth. If you stand here for long enough all This is the courtroom of demand.
the wonders of the world will pass by. In the Grand
Saleroom, in recent years, we have witnessed the auc- They are bidding for the slippers now. As the price rises, so
tion of the Taj Mahal, the Statue of Liberty, the Alps, does my gorge. Panic clutches at me, pulling me down,
the Sphinx. We have assisted at the sale of wives and the drowning me. I think of Gale - sweet cox! - and fight back
purchase of husbands. State secrets have been sold here, fear, and bid.
openly, to the highest bidder. On one very special
occasion, the Auctioneers presided over the sale, to an Once I was asked by the widower of a world-famous
overheated and inter-denominational bunch of smould- and much-loved pop singer to attend an auction of rock
ering red demons, of a wide selection of human souls of memorabilia on his behalf. He was the sole trustee of
all classes, qualities, ages, races and creeds. her estate, which was worth tens of millions. I treated
Everything is for sale, and under the firm yet essen- him with respect.

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`There's only one lot I want,' he said. 'Spend what- It is to the Auctioneers we go to establish the value of
ever you have to spend.' our pasts, of our futures, of our lives.
It was an article of clothing, a pair of edible rice-
paper panties in peppermint flavour, purchased long The price for the ruby slippers is rising ever higher.
ago in a store on (I think this was the name) Rodeo Many of the bidders would appear to be proxies, as I
Drive. My employer's late wife's stage act had included was on the day of the underpants; as I am so often, in so
the public removal and consumption of several such many ways.
pairs. More panties, in a variety of flavours — chocolate Today, however, I am bidding — perhaps literally —
chip, knickerbocker glory, cassata — were hurled into for myself.
the crowd. These, too, were gobbled up in the general There's an explosion in the street outside. We hear
excitement of the concert, the lucky recipients being running feet, sirens, screams. Such things have become
too carried away to consider the future value of what commonplace. We stay where we are, absorbed by a
they had caught. Undergarments that had actually been higher drama.
worn by the lady were therefore in short supply, and The cuspidors are in full employment. Witches keen,
presently in great demand. movie stars flounce off with tarnished auras. Queues of
During that auction, bids came in across the video the disconsolate form at the psychiatrists' booths.
ilnks with Tokyo, Los Angeles, Paris and Milan, bids so There is.work for the club-wielding guards, though not,
rapid and of such size that I lost my nerve. However, as yet, for the obstetricians. Order is maintained. I am
when I telephoned my employer to confess my failure he the only person in the Saleroom still in the bidding. My
was quite unperturbed, interested only in the final rivals are disembodied heads on video screens, and
price. I mentioned a five-figure sum, and he laughed. It unheard voices on telephone links. I am doing battle
was the first genuinely joyful laugh I had heard from with an invisible world of demons and ghosts, and the
him since the day his wife died. prize is my lady's hand.
`That's all right then,' he said. 'I've got three hundred
thousand of those.' At the height of an auction, when the money has
become no more than a way of keeping score, a thing

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AT THE AUCTION OF THE RUBY SLIPPERS

happens which I am reluctant to admit: one becomes grees will be on offer, too: Alsatian, Burmese, saluki,
detached from the earth. Siamese, cairn terrier.
There is a loss of gravity, a reduction in weight, a Thanks to the infinite bounty of the Auctioneers, any
lfoating in the capsule of the struggle. The ultimate goal of us, cat, dog, man, woman, child, can be a blue-blood;
crosses a delirious frontier. Its achievement and our can be — as we long to be; and as, cowering in our
own survival become — yes! — fictions. shelters, we fear we are not — somebody.
And fictions, as I have come close to suggesting
before, are dangerous.
In fiction's grip, we may mortgage our homes, sell
our children, to have whatever it is we crave. Alterna-
tively, in that miasmal ocean, we may simply float away
from our desires, and see them anew, from a distance,
so that they seem weightless, trivial. We let them go.
Like men dying in a blizzard, we lie down in the snow
to rest.

So it is that my cousin Gale loses her hold over me in the

crucible of the auction. So it is that I drop out of the
bidding, go home, and fall asleep.
When I awake I feel refreshed, and free.

Next week there is another auction. Family trees, coats

of arms, royal lineages will be up for sale, and into
any of these one may insert any name one chooses,
one's own, or one's beloved's. Canine and feline pedi-

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