Perfume adverts have extraordinary artistic license. Normally they get a fair bit of playtime throughout the year but this intensifies on the run-up to Christmas.
Diana tends to sit through advert breaks, unless she has a hot chocolate on the go. She did marketing at university ever so briefly but now she is certain that she can decode what these companies are trying to stimulate with their non-sequiturs and manipulation of nostalgia. She also enjoys the occasional nonsensical advert, one that is so bizarre that it can only be striving for ‘high art’.
Some of her favourite twenty second motion picture puzzles include the advert where a Frenchman huskily reciting a haiku about ‘her passion’ to flashbulbs and recording equipment, the commercial about a glamorous Swede stripping off in a tundra with her every line badly-dubbed and, of course, the advert featuring that Hollywood actor whose name constantly eludes her, being splashed in green paint while fondling a gas station pump. The real joy of these isn’t in definitively solving them but figuring out how on earth they might relate to a glass bottle full of pretty scents.
The only person Diana makes chuckle with her often ridiculous suggestions is herself. She lives alone and has done most of her adult life, spending her evenings wrapped in a fuzzy pink bathrobe and steadily draining the bottles of Chardonnay her workmates buy her every Christmas without fail. She takes a swig every time one of these baffling perfume adverts plays which, as previously mentioned, happens a lot.
After the eleventh sip of her night, she gasps and waits for the latest ad break to end which it does with a light and fluffy laundry detergent infomercial starring a comedian known for her bitterly sarcastic stand-up. It is as if her paradoxically white smile triggers the blackout.
Tapping the remote, Diana rises to her slippered feet and shuffles over to TV to check if it’s still properly plugged in. As she reaches for the main cable a pensive piano solo begins.
Glancing behind her, Diana sees that snow has started to fall on her sofa. Not only this, it trickles down slowly, long enough for her eyes to take in the shimmery intricacy of each individual flake. Breath catching, she gazes up at the ceiling to see if the rooftiles have somehow fallen loose without her noticing. What she sees is a giant human hand reaching down towards her, as if asking her to dance.
Against her better judgement, she takes the forefinger and is raised out of her living room and up into a starry night sky. A sun draws in close behind her and the hand but it burns neither of them. In fact she reaches out to feel for any kind of warmth only to receive a flare to her chest. This turns her robe to cinders and reveals a tight-fitting platinum ballgown underneath. Diana can see that she looks a vision from the mirrors that are now surrounding her.
With a single gasp, these shatter and she discovers that the giant hand has disappeared though a normal-sized version has taken its place, proffered by a suave gentleman who looks the spit of that Hollywood actor. Oh, what’s his name again?
They dance through outer space till he falls to his knees and sinks into an invisible floor. Diana glances downward and gravity soon takes effect on her too. Shutting her eyes a little too late, she lands in a varnished red cedar canoe in the middle of a gorgeous green ocean. Reaching for a diamond paddle, she begins to move on to destinations unknown. The sun returns but now it is distant and steadily melting a painted blue sky.
As she rows towards it, the water's current becomes viscous and she feels her grip on the paddle slipping. When at last it falls completely out of her grasp, she peers down into the crystal-clear depths till her own sight ripples and fades.
At last Diana stirs from her sleep, noticing that her show is back on and has been for a couple of minutes now. She is dressed in her usual pink robe and can see no hole in her roof, let alone snowfall. Shaking her head, the dream lets go but not totally. Even as she rubs her eyes alert, Diana can perceive the faint smell of cinnamon and citrus, of mint and melting chocolate. She takes a deep sniff of her robe collar.
“Pompier,” she whispers.
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