Travel log. The chat-saw box. Dedicated to Sven #2

Julia Schiefer is reporting on the OMNIBUS Reading Tour – without actually partaking personally, of course! A blog somewhere between fiction and reality: she will be taking us on her own Hop-On Hop-Off bus tour with real insights instead of the usual sightseeing! Her excursions – open to all – are designed for everyday life (but mostly out of range). If you look to your left, you may see a dog chewing on a skirt; to your right, a scooter transporting a bucket of water as a chariot carries a peacock off to a jolly good show.

“We have found nothing” Ronny confirmed again when Sven asked if there were no more peculiarities about the car, he had heard strange noises from behind the glove box.
“How can you explain that silly noise then?”
“Sven, don’t pull my leg, I promise there is nothing there. Don’t ask me! Maybe you should have an interrogation with your fantasy!”

“Listen, you go on that bus again and you drive these people around.” The company said to him. As always he gave in reluctantly. This is his strategy, to be reluctant, whatever he does, wherever he has to go. First it was indeed strategy when he started out as a bus driver, because people can handle reluctancy very easily, they just say what they have to say – no more, not less. He liked being silent. He just liked it: the privacy, and the fact, that you don’t have to get fussy about everything. He liked the honesty of not speaking. But eventually the reluctancy became a habit someday, like a lot of things do as one grows older. Only sometimes he still feels some push of energy, sometimes.

The appointed week for the job is almost done. The gypsy rhythm sloops in, with a heavy backdrop opening to Svens mood, finally flows the cockpit, fills it out. Sven feels like between squirly brackets. And the wet road gives him the shivers. The streets are glistening from whatever sun there shines, there is no sun shining, actually, there is just a few waves of beams that rinse the streets, moody colors gone straight. That is not what he thinks though. Some of the group of authors he is driving around are singing in the back of the bus. A guitar, three people listening, three others are singing. Their voices are tuned down leaving a noise like harmonic humming.
Someone comes up from behind. “When is the next stop?”
“15 Minutes”, Sven replies instantly.

Kriiietsch, Ruumpa-Retched, Kraaatsch, Rietsch. Ritty Row.
Not possible. Sven looks slightly amazed at the rhythmical noises coming from right behind the glove box.
Krrowmpa, Ruuumpa, Graatsch-Kriekriekriekrie
No way! That fucking car. What is in there?! It is nothing living, that he can tell from the noises and from the fact that it would have been in there for almost two weeks now.
The noises continue. He hammers on the aperture of the car, right above the glove box. The noise gets a little swirly each time he hits the plastic cover.
Krrowampa rururu, Kriietsch-Krakrakra, Ruumpawawa, Krieetsch-Krara, Krowmompa rururu…
Leaning over he opens the glove box. Nothing in there but the usual manuals and other books and papers. Krieetsch-Rock, mocking him. He reaches with his hands inside the glove box, but there is nothing, just air. He feels stupid and decides to halt as soon as possible. It’s been around five minutes since the noises started and the next exit off of the highway is just a few hundred metres away. He begins to pull over, getting into the exit lane…
Kriietsch
…and hammers on the aperture again. The aperture moans, the plastic gasps. There could be a crack somewhere on the edges now.

They stop at a parking lot of a factory close by the highway. Sven gets the necessary tools to take the actual glove box from the other aperture. The noise has died down in the meantime. Worrying about the condition of the engine Sven withdraws the screws one by one. He slowly removes the glove box shaped like a yapping jaw and puts it on the console.

Drones in the size of a fist fly in a swarm out of the black hole behind the glove box. Sven cries in astonishment and backs off into the bus. The papers, which were inside the glove box get into disorder, flying around the cockpit. Like a fight of swarms, they are redirected through the wind of the airscrews of the drones: an unequal fight. Now there are hundreds of them. Sven doesn’t move. The first thing is that he screams: Run! Take to one’s heels, dudes! He tries to make out a way from the hallway of the bus through the cloud that is in front of him. What should I do? How can I get out?! The drones are chafing at the bit, looking at him, each one a part of a huge mass. It’s them against me. This is it, I have to go through them, just jump, like the Gordic knot is solved. He sets to jump down back into the cockpit and out of the bus. He can feel the whirlwind as he jumpes into the crowd. And then he faints.

 

Leave a Reply