when the peace bomb exploded i was at a friends house having dinner, she was serving caramelised babylonian pears with neptune honey with fig ice cream on the side. we were just getting ready to eat it when her phone let of a beep. 
i don't usually carry a phone with me, and i could see her cogs working, turning away as she attempted some inner dialogue to work out if she should check the message and interrupt our meal, 'excuse me, i better check and see, it could be the hospital.'
i understood, i'm not given to offence by people and technology, there's much more to worry about that messages and phones interrupting meals, so i nodded, 'no problem, i can wait.'
she hunted through her handbag and pulled out a white iphone, then with that elegant swipe she must have retrieved her message and read it. as her eyes followed the text her expression changed, from casual and relaxed to petrified.
'hey, what's up?'
'there's been a terrorist attack, a bombs just been detonated in the city.'
i jumped up and ran to the television, she had spent months without a tv but recently bought a digital screen which activated as soon as i found the remote, i punched in the news channel.
a reporter was in the middle of a live interview, she looked very nervous. alice and i watched together our faces almost touching, i tried to look at the background but it was just smoke or dust. the presenter was in mid sentence, '...not sure who's responsible  or why they should do anything, it's not as if our troops have much longer in afghanistan, they are due to fly back tomorrow. the taliban have signed a peace deal, there's peace in the middle east, europian politics seems settled, asia has just seen a massive movement towards growth and prosperity, even africa is a continent at total peace.'
a disembodied voice asks a question, 'tracy, can you tell us anything about the target, is there much damage?'
'yeah, well to be honest the detonation was just outside town hall, the haze of what appears to be a low hovering fog has made it difficult to see what damage has been caused to the structure but i have heard the firemen and state emergency rescue workers will be coming out in a few moments and i will be talking to their commander of operations. he will be able to update us.'
'thank you. if you have just joined us we are coming live from sydney's town hall, where there has been some form of terrorist attack, our reporter tracy shaw is there on the spot and will be talking to the commander of operations in a few moments. tracy, how are you holding up? you have been on the scene from the beginning, covering a demonstration close to town hall that was turning violent, then this happened.'
tracy looks at the camera and does something sexy with her hair, then she launches into an earnest reply, 'yes tom, the crew and i had been covering the union protest, it was supposed to be a peaceful demonstration and about 2 thousand people turned up and were walking through the cbd, by the time they reached george street some sort of scuffle erupted between a group of anarchists and the police, a police man was hit in the face with a brick and a few molotov cocktails set alight some parked cars. by the time reinforcements had arrived it had turned into a full scale riot and then right across the street we heard this explosion, i brought the crew over and we are gradually piecing out what has occurred.'
'okay thanks for that tracy, and perhaps if you have just joined us at home you can run through what we know so far, for the viewers.'
'yes, at approximately 3 pm an explosion ripped through town hall leaving a huge cloud of gas and smoke, it's dispersing actually now, being blown away, there's commander falcon, he is the head of state emergency, let's just have a quick update.'
in the background alice and i see the town hall building begin to appear, it looks okay.
'commander falcon, can you tell us if there have been any casualties?'
'no beautiful, nothing, no one was hurt, it's just a gas baby, life's a gas.'
'errr, do you know who planted the bomb?'
'some peace loving dudes must have planted it i guess,' he waves at the camera and makes a peace sign.
'commander are you alright?'
'yeah baby, i'm freaking fantastic.'
some firemen start to walk out of the building, they are laughing and hugging, some passer by starts to kiss a girl he is standing next to, and suddenly the camera falls over but we can now see people on the steps of town hall, they are all smiling and happy, they hug one another. some one rushes over and stands the camera upwards, this time it faces down the street where the remnants of the riot are all shaking hands and hugging, cars are stopping and people jumping from the buses, they all look deliriously happy. 
alice and i try another channel, we turn it to sbs where there are similar scenes in london, paris, new york and tokyo, then we see the west bank where israelis and arabs are dancing together, we see hindus and muslims embracing in deli and we see chinese and tibetans bowing to one another. the voice over is in italian and neither of us understand what she is saying but when they show an shot of london an english voice takes over, 'yes the outbreak of peace seemed to be generated from these various explosive non lethal devices that have been planted all over the world, the effects are amazing as you can see, enemies are now friends, war has stopped almost everywhere, we are still uncertain who exactly is responsible for this but it's really quite beautiful, i mean life is beautiful, it's just so fucking beautiful.'
alice holds the remote and turns the tv off, she throws it across the room onto the sofa, then she leans in and looks at me with her big green eyes sparkling like friendly radioactivity, she giggles and brushes me with her lips gently upon mine, 'kiss me' she whispers.
'what about the ice cream?'