Original Story: Fictionarium, Chapter 3. The Lights
It often takes a disaster to make strangers notice that they are among the living, and that they are already living fearlessly amongst each other in coherent and voluntary interdependence. In emergencies, people have no leader unless it is their own heart, and the power of the heart's logic is universally indisputable. When needed, mutual strangers will take great risks in helping one another, and whether it be heart, logic or instinct, the true good nature of humans will show up when things get real.
With no blue lights flashing, no yellow police tape and no red emergency vehicles, Beaulah's comprehensive destruction of the myth of authority that day was not likely to be suitable for local color TV news. The invisible hand of The Science Board firmly and specifically controlled what made it onto TV, and they knew better than to publicize an awakening group of peaceful Hill Valley subjects- little mice who may have gotten a peek behind the curtains of the lab while venturing outside of their cages.
After Beulah had left the building, exactly such a logical gang of test subjects had circled the folding chairs at the DMV into the shape of a new world. The more they looked at the auto-licensing extortion scam and the mysterious Board of Scientists, the quicker they found themselves looking at one another, face to face with the true makers of their society; it was they themselves who were the thinkers of things, the great beings who inevitably chose how the world was to be, and it was obviously ridiculous to pretend to leave the task to anyone else.
The illusion that they could delegate this power to any fictional institution was shattered for this group of strangers on that rainy Monday. Authority itself, they supposed, was the primary fiction within their Fictionarium, and they all, in paying heed to it, had mindlessly created a world that was best suited for someone else. There was a pause in the conversation as they all inhaled this thought, and seeing it's opportunity, Reality dashed excitedly around the room, introducing itself.
Suddenly and with a fearful crack, a nearby bolt of lightning shook the building and the overhead fluorescent lights at the DMV went out for a second. The group of people, these new friends, all cheered at the synchronicity- it was as if nature had applauded their joint epiphany.
Arlo was still sitting at that red light nearby, glaring at the flowers, and he had been so close to this lightning bolt that the hair on his arms and head had stood up with a faint crackle just before the bright jag struck the nest of power poles in front of him.
The tremendous clap had left one of the high transformers a smoldering mess, and it was very nearly a near-death experience for the living, breathing Arlo, but he was soon laughing loudly as he saw what had just happened: the traffic light at 3rd and Maple was out. The malicious light was dead. Arlo cheered right up. Waving another car through the intersection, a sudden torrent of rain roared across the roof of his car, and he eased through the intersection, still smiling.
Arlo carried on with his day of fruitlessness, the rain soon stopped and an obligatory police car showed up to be seen at the fateful intersection of 3rd and Maple with blue lights swirling aggressively. A fire truck had stopped by, and the stricken transformer on it's pole was extinguished. The local TV station even showed up to report on it, and a group of about a dozen people had gathered around the scene, laughing and smiling.
source
As it turned out, Arlo wasn't the only one who was happy about the demise of this traffic light. In fact, every person that was interviewed by the reporter at the scene was happy about it. One youth that was interviewed said, "The light's better being gone. Everything moves really smooth, the drivers are seeing each other and waving. I love it… I got to wave at a cute girl in a red car here earlier… I let her go first, and she waved back! It was pretty sweet." He smiled proudly and everyone laughed at how genuine he was. They couldn't wait to see this guy on the TV news that night.
The intersection truly was working well without the bothersome traffic light. A friendly wave, a polite pause- soon most of the people who drove through the intersection every day were truly glad it was gone, and wished it would stay gone. Those at the scene imagined that the City Planners would see all of their heartfelt opinions on the news and have no choice but to remove the light permanently.
In their thoroughness and journalistic balance, however, the TV news crew had interviewed a random lady downtown with a more sanitary comment about disabled traffic lights just before they went back into the studio to edit the piece. On the TV news coverage that night, the film footage from 3rd and Maple with the obligatory police car was rolled, fading to video of the darkened lights tossing in the wind. Editors had cleverly added audio of some of the cars who'd honked to the news crew, as the operatic news lady songfully described that day's scene at the intersection with the stricken traffic lights as "chaos, anarchy and confusion", and they neatly wrapped up the piece using their added random lady saying "I think it's probably dangerous... hopefully they'll fix it soon."
According to the local Hill Valley Monday Night News, it had officially been another ordinary day.
That night, as Beulah's 'epic' DMV rant video was just beginning to race across the Internet, some sly person deftly hacked into the City's computer systems and, with great cunning and skill, turned off every last traffic light in Hill Valley, and rendered the traffic computer's back-up systems "jacked".
Out on the streets, the eerie darkness at the intersections slowed the cars down immediately. Somebody had definitely killed the lights, and suddenly everyone was driving with great caution. The traffic lights weren't flashing yellow or red, no- they weren't doing anything. They were indeed gone out, across town. Victims of human ingenuity and forbidden computer skills, the dead traffic lights hung darkly from their gallows through the night, until only the occasional car crept solemnly below. Haunting the intersections from above, they dangled against the night sky as only curious spectacles for the cautious drivers of the sleepy little town of Hill Valley.
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Chapter 4 of Fictionarium is coming soon
Welcome to the Fictionarium- where ordinary life is not necessarily such a good idea. The people of Hill Valley may not be ready to know or understand that yet, but we will see.
Fictionarium CHAPTER 1. and CHAPTER 2.
CHAPTER 2. part II and even an INTRODUCTION TO FICTIONARIUM
all photos @therealpaul