a short story

 

Y pentref distaw

Dim ond swn adar y môr

Tan y penwythnos

(Haicw gan Mark Rudman, 2016)

Here the war of the sexes began. A small coastal village, a favoured place to raise young families, and popular with retirees, its fame grew as an idyllic spot with accessibility to mountains and sea. After a Great Plague struck the nation and the wider world, a trickle of holiday visitors became a tourist torrent. People were barred from boarding winged metal cylinders, those airborne Petri-dishes, and remained within these shores.  News media invented an abomination of a buzz-word for the shift in holiday habits. They called it “staycationing”. But they didn’t stay at home. They came. 

Some arrived armed with fast loud ostentatious machines that intimidated the locals and destroyed the fragile roads. Some brought fast loud seagoing machines that in time scared Sophie the Seal and Derek the Dolphin away from their breeding grounds. As if to celebrate their dominance, the Grabbers played "music" over high volume sound systems, standard items on their jet skis.

Many came for weekends. Friday afternoons were a popular time to travel, after work, with many adopting the long tradition of the “Poets Day”. The approach roads were filled with those desperate to escape to their privileged playgrounds, fleeing from inner city pollution. Their high speeds brought the same pollution with them in their exhaust emissions and from their titanic tyres.

And then, one day, the rules changed. It was decreed from on high that traffic would go no faster than 32 kph on many roads in built up areas. A few, whether indigenous or visitors, ignored the rules. Some campaigned against them. The Entitled bought EVs, enormous and heavy, that could accelerate more quickly. Some even thought 32 kph was actually mph, but continued to drive through villages at 60 or more in either denomination.

The flashpoint came after a driver realised how close to  disaster he had come, when a young child stepped out in front of the car. Driving just below the new limit, a collision was avoided. Several times. A statistical conundrum in later analysis, as non-accidents were not recorded. Aware of other such non-events involving children, older people or dogs, the driver recorded the episode anyway on the village’s social media platform. 

The response was quiet at first. Within days the responses began to take on a distinct demographic significance. The non-responses spoke more loudly than those written in support. Most of the supporting “upticks” were from women, in the order of 95 percent. For many of them it was the catalyst for change, noticing how their trusted partners, beaux, boyfriends or husbands refused to engage in the issue. It had nothing to do with them, safe and immortal in their cocooned metal boxes, even if it risked their own children. 

There were mutterings around arcane subjects: toxic masculinity, misogyny, character traits, Clarkson. Sigmund Freud would have had a field day about some men and their sports cars. Mutterings grew into arguments between spouses. The brouhaha spread through the village, fuelled by ongoing venom across social media. Lust. The lust for speed continued until even the women in more traditional (ie subservient) marriages stopped consummating marital relations in protest. Things turned very nasty indeed as word of the disquiet spread across the continent. Violence was about to break out. 

The above driver was almost caught in a crossfire of pitchforks and rolling pins, perambulators and Rollses when, suddenly, the threat of all out war fizzled out as quickly as it had begun. That year,  Automatic Speed Limiting technology had been initiated remotely across Europe and beyond in all vehicles less than seven years old. Those who tried overriding it were defeated by their insurance policies. How the women of the village laughed when accelerator pedals were pumped in vain. 

The End. And a new beginning.

Haiku translation:

The quiet village

Only a sound of sea birds

Until the weekend

Links

POETS day - Wikipedia

Intelligent Speed Assistance - Intelligent Speed Control | TomTom

Ivor Cutler--- Women of the world take over (youtube.com)