LITTERING KILLS CROWS
She stands in the wake of the freeway's fastest lane, her eyes wide as saucers, her face glistening with sweat, her arms signalling in inscrutable semaphore. Two paces behind her, a green sundress lies still as a crime scene. On her bare chest, a peculiar slogan – LITTERING KILLS CROWS – is painted in black. Maybe it does, you think, from your perch on the bridge above. The cops are going to come for her, drape her in white, and throw her in the back of a car. LITTERING KILLS WOMAN. We all yearn to be saved. Since no one saves us, we resort instead to saving others.
It's an unseasonably hot morning, and you imagine today's black paint is tomorrow's tan lines. LITTERING PROTECTS SKIN. You envision yourself in an ad for sunblock – a new revolutionary product, CHEST & NAVEL, offering 16-hour protection from the sun's harmful UV rays. Meanwhile, rubberneckers on both sides of the freeway unite, gawking. Traffic slows, meetings are delayed, appointments are missed. LITTERING ENDS CAREERS. In the distance, the siren of a cop car bleats, helplessly stuck in traffic.
You wonder if the cop blames the human need to conform, not voyeurism, for the traffic. Why, for instance, must the white-collar workday conform to a distribution curve with a median of 9:30 AM and a standard deviation of 15 minutes? It's because, as human beings, our lot is to conform. Why do people feel compelled to decelerate and gawk at a woman who draws attention to the impact of littering on crows? It's because we are also, paradoxically, drawn to the eccentric, the out-of-place, that which defies the norm. She, the cop, is who we, nameless faceless members of society, have tasked with extracting this menace from the fringes. Since we cannot divert our gaze from what frightens us, what frightens us must be forcibly extricated from our midst.
The tarmac adds to the heat – unseasonable, the man on the radio had called it. He had said it was an unseasonably hot morning. On the bridge, on either side of you, you see imaginary pools of water; the air sizzles. How did you get here, you wonder. How did you end up atop this bridge on this unseasonably hot morning, peering down at the spectacle unfolding below? Maybe you've misunderstood how the universe works, maybe it's the spectacle that brought you here. Perhaps the causal nature of time looks more like this ← than this →. Maybe it's the spectacle that got you here. LITTERING MOVES TIME. Maybe that's how the activist ended up on the freeway. Some sort of autopilot guiding her bare feet over the hot asphalt – LITTERING MOVES FEET.
The cop exits her car, some five hundred metres from where she will meet the activist. She runs, water bottle in hand. She appears to move in slow motion, a 2010s acoustic ballad providing the soundtrack in your head. As she nears the activist, the freeway becomes a parking lot. The only signs of life are the cop and the activist, whose knees are visibly starting to buckle.
You recall an ad for an oral rehydration supplement from your childhood. In it, the sun used a straw to suck the life out of a busy office worker's head. The sun appears to have done the same thing to the activist today. She collapses mere seconds before the cop can reach her. LITTERING CAUSES HEATSTROKES. The cop lifts her up, cradles her in her arms. A car door opens; you see a hand gesturing to get in. As the cop deposits the activist in the back seat, another car door opens. A man in a linen shirt steps out, directing traffic away from the two fastest lanes, in preparation for the car with the cop, the activist, and the gesticulating hand to drive the wrong way back to the cop car. Amidst honks of protest, traffic obeys. It's all going to be okay, you conclude, and walk away.
