Welcome to hell, should be the signage when you walk into this building, which has virtually maintained its sad brand since the early 80s - only the recently acquired green chairs, which you can tell are new due the lack of stains, still glaringly apparent on the carpet and the walls. This looks like an oversized room that has recently recovered from a conflict in a war-zone. The incredible stench of rotting hope is what really affirms its purpose.
The people who work here were not the top of their university class, they are public service fodder and they hate us, and look at us like we are responsible for the apathy of the country and it's all our fault that they work in a system that will never change.
It is fascinating and repulsive in equal measure, the aimless, undefined, unchallenged waiting defies instinctal survival. Our senses are dulling before our eyes and it's Aldous Huxley's Brave New World. We are the dregs of something, although I am grappling with what? I know this resistance is truly futile, for there are threats and cameras everywhere ensuring passivity.
Out of the corner office, way across the huge open plan space, someone screams, it's a youngish woman and she stumbles out of the doorway and there is blood on her arm and torso. The centrelink staff stiffen and gaze over at us the robotised morning citizens, anticipating a possible response. We are transfixed by their stillness.
Three 20 year old boys who have talked about themselves for the past hour loudly, are half alarmed, 'um' says one pointing 'is she okay?' I feel the fog slide from my vision, shaking it loose as it's power evaporates, and I turn to them 'have you seen anyone come out of those offices after they've gone in? Call me crazy, but something's not right here'.
The three boys, grin at each other, on the floor behind their chairs a dismembered arm drags itself passed. We pause. A feeling of horror kicks me in the guts and bile rises in my throat, and it's on. There are centrelink zombies everywhere and they know that we know, the front door reverbarates shut as the industrial glass doors comes together and a zombie hangs a 'back in 20 mins' sign on a sucker hook, turns towards my voice and with slightly more speed than expected bounds in our direction. To my left is a computer bay, and I dive towards it - 'don't get bitten' I yell to the boys and a young blond girl next to me who's alert to the play and watching us with frightened eyes - we all heave printers into a passionate embrace, I throw mine through the air as it slams into the sides of a zombie head, another slams it it the gut - gore flies in a transfixing arc across the 20 people staidly seated, awaiting the call of their name.
They respond. Some jump up like they've been hit with cold water, the stench makes many gag and a child is screaming - something is thudding on the glass, a group of refugees, they've seen this before, are banging a desk hard into a window, but the windows are government issue and the only unbreakable thing in here.
People are screaming and the zombies are going wild, I see a stray can of hairspray has rolled out of an abandoned handbag and I dive across the room hearing the clack of teeth just pass my ear. 'Lighter' I yell at one of the boys who is whacking two zombies repeatedly with a flat screen computer 'yuk, he says, 'like I'd smoke', his friend throws me some matches instead 'What?' He responds to his friends shocked face 'I don't smoke, I just light fires'; 'oh, ok' says his friend 'cool'.
'Later ladies' I yell as the zombie hoard consolidates. Spraying the contents of the can I light it up and the room is aflame, the cheap fabric and filling in the green chairs is highly flammable, the smoke toxic and I briefly reflect the irony that if the zombies don't get us the smoke will, just as quickly the sprinklers kick in and the evacuation process; across the room and on the other side of a bloody puddle of human debris the glass doors open - I have to get out I have two kids to think of - but first.
I grab a fairly clean zombie and lock her arms behind her back dodging her teeth and drag her to her desk 'which one's your office' I shout hysterically, she is in a frenzy snarling and beyond answering but I force her into the closest office space. I use my scarf to hold her as I search the in trays, pulling the CARER allowance firms from my bloody handbag, I smear a dollop of ear off the top, check the boxes are all ticked and everything signed, I pick up a stamp with approved and stamp the top of both sheets in the office only box, and pop them in the tray for processing that says 'Carers allowance/payments forms'. I pick the printer up off the desk and drop it on the head of the zombie - she stops moving - the boys are still outside in the main foyer, it seems despite the evidence and consequent reservations of quite a few well known studies, the computer game generation is well equipped to take down a pack of zombies, in fact these guys have been inadvertently trained for it, they are having the time of their lives, I briefly wish the kids were here, but I'm glad they're at home because by now they'd be nagging me for snacks, I've been here since 9.03 and it's now 11.27 in the morning.
I make my way out the doors and there are a dozen or so survivors, we mill about for a minute or two and then make our excuses 'car parked in a 1/2 hour zone' is mine as I gingerly step away, as it's Brunswick no one even notices my bloody clothing. On the windscreen of the Peugeot is a parking fine. On the back it says I'll need to go to their offices in Carlton to contest the fine. I'll go tomorrow, but this time, I'll be packin' my own hairspray, a lighter.
