CHAPTER II

Slade was tired of sitting. He had been seated for about two hours and had begun estimating how much longer it would take to reach his destination. Traffic could have been caused by anything: an accident, a breakdown, too many vehicles, or simply the road itself…

The character “…” is called an ellipsis. Useful thing. It gets on with the matter at hand. Many people in Slade's world might have liked to eliminate distractions from their lives by saying, “Dot, dot, dot.” At that moment, Slade wished either he or the vehicle he was in could fly.

It is raining, not in Slade's world, but in mine. The roof above me is rumbling as though there is a tremor, but there is none. I, too, cannot say “Dot, dot, dot” and rid myself of my problems, but I have other methods.

Slade could have stepped out of the vehicle to stretch if he wanted. He would not. He hated attention. He was good at being “invisible.” He liked to think it was his nature, but there was more to it than that: he was afraid people did not give a shit about him. So he played a little mind game. It went like this: “I do not give a shit about you, so I do not give a shit that you do not give a shit about me!”

Not giving a shit, here, simply means not caring. It was a popular expression in that world.

Slade thought about ridiculous things whenever he was sad or bored. The present predicament of his country kept him sad; the traffic had now made him bored as well.

So he began to think about flying cars. That should not surprise you. A flying car would have solved his immediate transport problem. In Slade's time, though, flying cars were still a “work in progress.” In plain terms: there were no flying cars yet.

How hard could it be to make one? he thought. I just might be able to do something about it when I am rich…

He never became rich.

In Slade's world, there were things called “movies.” Many people were deceived by them, especially the ones called “science fiction.” Some of the ideas in them had almost nothing scientific about them. Their producers wanted excitement. Sometimes they added a bit of actual science, and sometimes…

Flying cars were ordinary in science-fiction films, which made Slade wonder why they were unavailable. Isn’t it just science? How hard could it be? We have planes! It should be a walk in the park!

A walk in the park means something easy to do. Creating flying cars was not one of those things.

Using flying cars in Slade's country would have been difficult anyway, at least until the electrical wires hanging haphazardly everywhere were taken underground. That was something else the government could not give a shit about. Those wires were dangerous. If they fell, they could do real harm, but…

To his credit, Slade then considered something that was unpopular in science fiction movies. The idea was that of making the body of every vehicle possess similar poles of a magnet. According to him, a reduction in vehicle collisions would reduce accidents considerably. In movies, accidents made things interesting and exciting, so you can imagine why such an idea was never exploited.

Slade would have made a good living as a science fiction movie director or writer. Such an idea could only be effective in movies and would probably intrigue many people. But in reality, it would be disastrous. Why? Vehicles would no longer need to hit themselves for accidents, but they would still occur.

I would like to give you the science behind that, but you will have to take my word for it. Slowly, vehicles began to move, and Slade was tired. He thought about taking a quick nap. He hoped he would be closer to his destination when he woke up.

He was right this time, but not how he imagined it. Thirty metres forward would undoubtedly get him closer to his destination, and the vehicle moved way more than that. But by the time he woke up, he still had not gotten halfway through the journey!