Wednesday, September 02, 2015

Dystopia: the state of having leaned over too much

Bozo Boozo was too stunned by the sight that met his eyes. In spite of the loud thump that had woken him up at the wheel, he could see nothing in front of the car. He got out and closed the door with a loud whump, and then instantly regretted it when the side mirror shook threateningly upon its one remaining hinge. The one remaining hinge was becoming less reliable by the minute and was clearly on the verge of breaking off.

He walked over to the front, trying his best to regulate his breaths. He failed spectacularly in this endeavor in spite of the visual assurance of seeing no one in front of his car, as the more disturbing possibility of something being under his car had just occurred to him.

As it transpired, there was something under his car. He had hit a road sign asking drivers to “Drive Safe”.

He extracted the sign from under his car and examined his car. The bumper was a bit scratched, but the budget-oriented nature of the sign meant that it hadn’t been able to do much damage. The budget-oriented nature of the sign also meant that Bozo, a very much midlife-crisis-plagued man, could easily straighten it out.

Bozo made to throw it away and then saw that the budget-conscious government had painted another message on the back of it. The message on the other side read “Sign Not in Use”. In fact, what Bozo thought was the back of the sign was its front. The road security agency had installed a sign at that spot since it had had strict directives to maintain a sign/5 km ratio on the highways. Someone had pointed out that the sign was blank, upon which the agency had painted “Sign Not in Use” upon it – the only message that seemed to make sense for a sign installed in the middle of nowhere. When the self-defeating irony of the message had been pointed out, the agency had proceeded to simply turn the sign around and paint an equally meaningless message on the other side.

The rather literal bureaucratic interpretation of the sign/5 km directive had also resulted in several signs that warned drivers of speed bumps that they had passed a few kilometers back (less than 5 kilometers, of course), the imminent presence of narrow bridges where there weren’t any, and the start of a mountain road just as the road started to descend. The road safety agency had even moved the location of several – 3 at the last count – toll booths so that they could coincide with their signs.

Having ascertained that the road sign was the only object he had hit in his slumberous drive, Bozo finally managed to get his breath under control. He then compulsively smoothed his sleeve and rolled it above his wrist, over which it had compulsively drooped. He always wore perfectly tailored clothes, but somehow they didn’t always seem to be perfectly tailored for him.

Having thrown away the sign in the shrubbery at the side of the road, thus inadvertently setting off a process that would result in at least three road safety agency meetings and the sacking of one supervisor, Bozo got back into the car and sank into the driver’s seat.

He had fallen asleep at the wheel and that was not okay. He had to make sure it didn't happen again. He closed his eyes for a while and did a meditation trick an old girlfriend had taught him. Then he remembered that she had left him for his brother, and this woke him up better than anything else could have.

He turned on his car radio and cranked up the volume. He shut the door with an unusually vigorous swing and turned on the engine. As he drove back on to the road, he glanced at the side mirror and realized that the mirror had finally come off, because of which he hadn’t seen that the road safety agency's pickup truck was already crashing into the side of his car.

***

The road safety agency rep was on his way to replace the sign with one that said “Sign Now in Use”. He had been driving the pickup for hours and in the budget-conscious pickup with no air-conditioning, this was turning out to be surprisingly soporific. Apart from being awake, there was nothing he could have done when the sloppily driven sedan had swerved suddenly into his path.

Tuesday, August 11, 2015

3 Ways to Fit in a Daily Dose of Reading

Reading is a pastime for a privileged few who think it's okay to refer to themselves as the privileged few. While most take up books as a last resort, these privileged few (nobody objects if I keep using the term, right? No? Good!) start to rot without one. They turn to their mobile phones in desperation and usually fail to find in the virtual world the company they desire. They turn to their TV screens and manage to pass a while, but eventually crave the lignin-infused company of a book.

In spite of their dreams of leading a life filled with books at every step in a house filled with books with someone who shares this fantasy, routine life interrupts harshly. Finding time to read amidst the daily rush can then become a chore itself. Here's the three best ways you can fit in a bout of reading in the grind of the modern 9-6 life.

The Lunch Break

If you work in a place with a lunch break smaller than an hour, my sympathies are with you. Luckily most of us don't and have an uninterrupted block of time in the afternoon. While I'm not advocating abandoning lunch - well, not just advocating abandoning lunch - it's the easiest thing in the world to read while you eat. Unless you need company while you eat, in which case you're probably wasting more of the lunch break than you need to.

Be bold enough to use the overachiever's privilege to extend your lunch breaks beyond the allotted amount. But maintain the fine line between being an overachiever deserving a bit of laxity and an inefficient break-hogger. Oh, and make sure you overachieve.

The Waits of Modern Life

Unless you have ordered some really fast food, you probably have to wait up to 15 minutes for takeaways. Unless you are married or live with your parents, you probably have to order takeaways more than once a week. This can add up to half an hour of reading time. Add in other places that have lines, and you can extract a couple hours of reading time per week without breaking a sweat.

If you use public transport for your commutes, you probably get around an hour every day. Instead of looking out the window at scenes you see everyday, dive into your paper-backed companion. Even if you don't get a seat, reading while standing is not as hard as we may imagine. Give it a go.

The Game of the Throne

If you suffer from constipation, it may be hard to find a silver lining. But if you are a reader and constipated, you've discovered the key to making the best out of something that literally forces you to sit motionless for a considerable time. Grab a book and at least the problem of boredom is eliminated! The other one, well, I could perhaps recommend a good thriller to shock your systems into action...

Read a book instead of watching the same illegally downloaded shows over and over again. Instead of torturing your mind with soap operas. Instead of torturing your eyes with video games. Grab a book any time you can, in any filler, any pause. I promise, you won't regret it.