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Walking Distance

Crumple zones, pop-up bonnets, exterior airbags - an increasing amount of a car's value was being dedicated to minimising pedestrian injury, to benefitting an individual who had contributed nothing towards the purchase of the vehicle. There had been a short-lived pedestrian tax - part discouragement, part funding - but it had proven too hard to calculate fairly, too easy to cheat. So all A-roads were vehicle-only by the end of the year, unless you had a pedestrian licence. B-roads and smaller followed soon after, polite roadsigns appearing at their outlets. Cities expanded and contracted, claiming tinier and tinier arteries with each pulse. Cars became heavier and cheaper, cushioned only on the inside. Pedestrianism a dangerous sport, each licence a waiver.

I was sitting on a low stone wall at the side of the B2192, tracing patterns in the dust, awaiting the police. A helicopter had seen me, genetically-improved maize swirling as it cut low across the fields, and it knew that nobody had applied to walk south-to-north along the B2192 that evening.

Cars zipped either way along the road, trailing the whims of their drivers. The 24-hour shops for all-important milk or cigarettes. The busier pub in the next village. Friends half a mile away. A ten-screen cinema at twenty. Bubbles of clean light and conditioned air roaring quietly through the summer evening, drivers - and passengers, if there happened to be any - carefully protected from one another, protected from the sunset and the coastal air, protected from time and from contemplation.

Stinging blue light flashed over the hedgerows as a police car slewed onto the dusty roadside path. The window whirring down, its driver leaned out to ask for my pedestrian licence. I fished it from a pocket. It was an inexpensive forgery, picked up from a flak-jacketed rambler at some activist's meeting. Suspicious, the sharply-dressed constable snapped it from my fingers, ducking back into his car to check barcodes against the computer.

I took a deep breath, stretching my arms and fingers in the breeze. The late-evening traffic continued to hiss past, and, face glowing green in the light of his dashboard terminal, the police officer can't have heard my footsteps in the dust, the crackle of twigs as I vaulted a hedge, the rustle of genetically-improved maize as I waded towards the setting sun.

 
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Archive

Clare Maguire > 6dec2002 > The Face of The Future
Simon Batistoni > 15nov2002 > Ghost
Kelly Bean > 8nov2002 > The Program
Anonymous > 1nov2002 > Winning the Lottery
Ned > 25oct2002 > Calibre
Tom Massey > 4oct2002 > Roses
Simon Batistoni > 27sep2002 > Message Centre
Riana > 20sep2002 > Value Added
Giles Turnbull > 13sep2002 > A lab technician's lot
Kevan Davis > 6sep2002 > The Campaign for Real Advertising
Giles Turnbull > 30aug2002 > The old lady and the whelk
KTL > 23aug2002 > Feet
Sandy Tulloch > 16aug2002 > How the people came to stop thinking
RavenBlack > 9aug2002 > An Arm And A Leg
Nicholas Wilshere > 19jul2002 > Two full-page ads
Dustin Ruby > 12jul2002 > Family Life
Matt Jones > 14jun2002 > The end of history
Cathrine > 7jun2002 > The Eye of the Beholder
Nick > 31may2002 > I wanna shake your hand
RavenBlack > 24may2002 > Precognito Ergo Sum
Ned > 10may2002 > Spambot
Tyrethali > 26apr2002 > The Contest
Holly Gramazio > 19apr2002 > A Tale of No Watermelons
Brooke Magnanti > 12apr2002 > What The Dead Remember
Tyrethali > 5apr2002 > Superego
RavenBlack > 29mar2002 > Black Rain
james > 22mar2002 > The Atom Thief
RavenBlack > 15mar2002 > Soul Trap
matzu > 8mar2002 > Angry Elton
RavenBlack > 1mar2002 > Hell Is Other People
JT Bruce > 22feb2002 > Door Ajar
matzu > 15feb2002 > Send in the clones
Kevan Davis > 8feb2002 > Litter
RavenBlack > 1feb2002 > The Perfect Job
Tyrethali > 25jan2002 > Mystery
Giles Turnbull > 11jan2002 > The Twisted World of Advertising
Tom Armitage > 21dec2001 > Numbers
Sandy Tulloch > 14dec2001 > Killing Cats
Brooke Magnanti > 7dec2001 > The Jet Set
Giles Turnbull > 30nov2001 > Driftwood
james > 23nov2001 > with you in mind
RavenBlack > 16nov2001 > UpsideClones
Kevan Davis > 9nov2001 > Do Not Stand Forward Of This Notice
Giles Turnbull > 2nov2001 > Group Effort
Kevan Davis > 26oct2001 > Ask The Audience
RavenBlack > 19oct2001 > Don't You Just Hate Stupid People
Martin Griffiths > 12oct2001 > Your Nearest McDonalds...
RavenBlack > 5oct2001 > Life's a bureaucracy, and then you die
Kevan Davis > 28sep2001 > Work To Win
Tom Armitage > 21sep2001 > Don't Book it - Thomas Cook it.
Giles Turnbull > 14sep2001 > What happened to George
RavenBlack > 7sep2001 > Mental States
Kevan Davis > 31aug2001 > Walking Distance
Stuart and Jack > 24aug2001 > dialogue
Kevan Davis > 17aug2001 > Collector's Item

 
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