The bus started inching forward through the traffic again, then stopped suddenly. I sighed; to do any more would send my stress levels soaring. Instead, I considered getting off and walking, but I couldn’t walk home from here. I’d have to catch another bus after a mile or two, and that would cost money.
My phone beeped, a text message. It wasn’t from anyone in my phone book; I didn’t even recognise the country code, let alone the number.
HI IT'S ME. BEEN
LIBER8D BY POLAND.
WILL FONE U L8R.
I smiled, and added the number to my phone book under the name “Euro Roots Poland”.
I saw something move out of the corner of my eye. I turned to see it was only an advert changing — you know the sort, where three different adverts are fixed on the sides of a hundred triangular rollers. I looked around me: I was not the only passenger on the top deck, but I was the furthest back and could be mischievious unseen. So I got out my blowpipe, loaded it with a poison dart, opened the window by my side. I stood on the seat and contorted my body so I could get a good aim at my target — the window design purposefully made this difficult. And blew.
At first, I thought I had missed, that the dart would hit the wall on which the advert was mounted, be swallowed up and spat out. But it just caught the bottom of one of the rollers.
The advert quivered. Then it rippled, as if to show another ad. But the picture that it now displayed was not an advert: It was a close-up of a face, eyes closed, smiling contentedly. It was as if Big Brother had been put to sleep.
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Date: 2004-06-10 02:36 pm (UTC)The bus started inching forward through the traffic again, then stopped suddenly. I sighed; to do any more would send my stress levels soaring. Instead, I considered getting off and walking, but I couldn’t walk home from here. I’d have to catch another bus after a mile or two, and that would cost money.
My phone beeped, a text message. It wasn’t from anyone in my phone book; I didn’t even recognise the country code, let alone the number.
I smiled, and added the number to my phone book under the name “Euro Roots Poland”.
I saw something move out of the corner of my eye. I turned to see it was only an advert changing — you know the sort, where three different adverts are fixed on the sides of a hundred triangular rollers. I looked around me: I was not the only passenger on the top deck, but I was the furthest back and could be mischievious unseen. So I got out my blowpipe, loaded it with a poison dart, opened the window by my side. I stood on the seat and contorted my body so I could get a good aim at my target — the window design purposefully made this difficult. And blew.
At first, I thought I had missed, that the dart would hit the wall on which the advert was mounted, be swallowed up and spat out. But it just caught the bottom of one of the rollers.
The advert quivered. Then it rippled, as if to show another ad. But the picture that it now displayed was not an advert: It was a close-up of a face, eyes closed, smiling contentedly. It was as if Big Brother had been put to sleep.