He had the most boring job in the city – for real – it
ranked bottom in a Kingdom-wide satisfaction survey. Traffic control warden.
There were only six of them, and they rotated in eight-hour shifts, two a
shift; relinquishing their soft, warm seat and sweat-sticky headset to the next
with a wordless, faceless expression.
An
expression that didn’t change.
He
could see through the ‘eyes’ of the drones and direct their movement through
the headset and from the ‘comfort’ of the office. There were physical monitors
too for when the heavy feeling on the eyes became too much, but for the most
part, that faint blue glimmer of the screens was a pale facsimile of light on
his skin and nothing more.
Two
minutes into a shift and he became a dislocated entity, a city-bird without a
roost.
A
little longer and red triangles flashed in his periphery. An accident. Two
traffic control drones were needed on the A5 road. He despatched them and
connected to their cameras; autocars shifted in synchronicity around him,
keeping their distance and speed in check. As he got nearer to the accident he
began to overtake them as their speed decreased, and then stopped altogether.
Up ahead, one autocar had overturned. The wheels hadn’t thought to stop
turning.
A quick
assessment: four lanes, so should be easy enough to set up temporary stop-go
lights with the drones. He commanded drone 2 to hold its place just before the
accident, while steering drone 1 to the other side. This was routine. As the
drone passed the accident he checked that medical and clean-up were on their
way. Tick. And tick. And noticed a pair of legs sprawled on the hardtop, the
top-half buried beneath the car. One shoe missing. Painted toenails.
Another
suicide. Sure the autocars failed sometimes and caused an accident, or just
pulled themselves over in need of repair, but more and more lately his job had
become to witness the death impulse. It wasn’t the autocars’ fault; they were
programmed to cause the least amount of risk to life as possible in the event
of a life-or-death situation. Swerving to avoid a pedestrian as she dived into
the road was not an optimum decision at 70mph.
Green-painted
toenails.
He
stopped. Horns beeped and blared so he turned the volume down. He used the zoom
function and the world contracted down to those green-painted toenails. The
same ones he had painted a few nights ago, only now scuffed and chipped. And on
the other foot, hanging loose, was an orange high-heeled shoe. No-one else he
knew wore orange high-heeled shoes and had green-painted toenails.
Blood
pooled from beneath the overturned autocar in an ever-increasing puddle.
Heart-pounding,
he sent the drone high into the sky, as high as the limiters would allow, and
looked down at the toys playing make-believe. It’s not real, he thought. None
of this is real. And forgetting he had no legs, he jumped. He flapped the arms
he did not have and spiralled forward, seeing road, seeing sky, seeing road,
seeing sky, until the road was suddenly there and then wasn’t.
This flash fiction was inspired by the world of Neon Sands, the first in a trilogy currently accepting nominations on Kindle Scout. Like this world and want to read more? Please vote for Neon Sands on Kindle Scout and get a free copy!
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