Tuesday, January 3, 2012

A STATUE IS BORN by Daniel Vlasaty

The traffic light snaps a picture and a driver turns to ash. Cops with Gatling guns for mouths patrol the streets from above, their mechanical wings hissing and creaking. They watch as more and more drivers are turned to ash by the murderous traffic light and they laugh. The cops are clones.

A girl standing at the corner waiting for the bus hides behind a wave of poofy hair, trying to be invisible. She’s been waiting for the bus for three days. She is not sure if it is ever going to arrive. 

A man gets out of the passenger side of a bright red sports car and charges the traffic light with a baseball bat. His wife has just been turned to ash. He screams: “You stupid sonovabitch!  She was three months pregnant! That baby was destined to be a lizard god! The doctor told us…” His words are lost in a string of gurgling screams, and he begins to attack the traffic light. 
           
The traffic light feels nothing.
           
The cops drift over to the man and watch him with their collective eyes. Their teeth are armor piercing bullets. Their Gatling gun mouths roar to life as a warning. But he doesn’t stop. He throws his baseball bat at the traffic light hanging above the road. The cops turn it to sawdust before it can connect. They turn their gun mouths on the man next. He is dead before he can give them the finger.
           
The girl at the bus stop pushes the pile of hair out of her face and zooms in on the scene with her camera eyes. She is an undercover investigative journalist. She has been working on a story about police brutality and unfair traffic lights. These have both been huge problems for the city’s habitants. 
           
She films the clone cops as they float around the man’s destroyed body. They are laughing.  Their laugh is evil and childish. One of the cops notices her filming them and they all swarm around her. She clicks the SEND button on her neck just as all of the cops’ gun mouths roar to life again.
           
She is shredded into millions of pieces, but not before her footage reaches her editor’s inbox. 
           
The footage is shown immediately on every single channel and the investigative journalist is given a posthumous Pulitzer. A statue of her now greets everyone entering the city.  

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