Static Movement

A link to a story used by Static Movement, edited by Chris Bartholomew:

*Terms & Conditions Apply - Published December 2009

*Terms and Conditions Apply © Mark Robinson     They tell me it's in the small print; and, I'm looking down, reading through it; but, I can't see where it says it. I switch the phone to my other ear and turn the page; more terms and conditions in even smaller print; so small it's almost illegible, and I squint down at the rows of dark font, holding the page up to the light so I can see it better.   “Can you be any more specific?” I ask the operator; the customer service operative; some bored kid wearing a headset.   “It's all good.” Is what he says; what's all good? So I ask him; kindly offer him the chance to elaborate before I start to lose it, again; give this young man the benefit of the doubt.   The kid's reply; his choice of response to a man seriously close to the edge is an exhale of breath. It rings in my ear; a static surge of electricity next to my brain.   Counting slowly to ten in my mind, I ask to speak to this kid's supervisor.   “Speaking!” Is what he yells down the phone; him, this snot-nosed, insolent, little brat.   “You're the supervisor?!” Is all I manage before the car slips forward, again; ever closer to the cliff-edge.   I can't look down; can't move; seat-belt tensionor's jammed; electrics gone, central-locking me inside this metallic tomb; sat-nav still instructing me to turn left when there is no longer any road in that direction; it was following this synthesised feminine voice that has got me into this situation in the first place. I reach forward to rip it from the window and feel the car give way.   Helplessly pulling at the seatbelt strapped across my chest and stomach while shouting down the phone as the hold music kicks in once again. Elbow back hard against the driver-side window, now buzzing with funny bone charge; I throw my mobile at the passenger-side in hopes of smashing them both.   The white cliffs of Dover spanning my periphery like a shore-line; scared to move my legs in case the car should shudder forward and momentum take me plunging down across the ragged rocks below.   Satellite navigation spewing out commands like a petulant child; front tyres scraping the edge of the precipice; brakes and chassis moaning, fighting with the forces of nature; indicator light still ticking like a metronome, illuminating the state-of the-art dashboard littered with buttons and knobs and icons that mean absolutely nothing to me; right foot still on the foot brake, knee trembling from the strain I'm unconsciously putting it under; that vague sound of call-centre hold music filtering up from the remnants of my broken mobile phone, lying in pieces in the passenger side foot well.   The supervisor of the customer service department of the company who manufactured my satellite navigation device denying any and all claims that it's system has brought me to the edge; that it's software and global positioning service has placed me in this vicarious position, sitting atop the foreground of the end of the country.

A crowd has gathered; I can feel them murmuring and shuffling around me like I'm inside a zoo enclosure; hearing them whisper in loud voices why I'm not doing anything; “Why isn't he trying to get out?”

Don't you think I would if I could I want to yell back at every one of them. “Ha!” The female voice harks at me; the little black plastic moulded unit suction-cupped to my Pilkington glazed windscreen, “One phone call isn't trying very hard, is it?”  In a state of cold-sweating shock, a quick line running down from my underarms I stare at the sat-nav. And, in that moment the front of the car slides forward; front tyres now resting on thin air. If I didn't know any better, I'd swear the crowd were goading me down to my death with their sheer will alone.  “What?” I ask; immediately feeling the eyes of everyone on the back of my head and in their thoughts and out loud, asking themselves and each other to whom I'm talking to?  “After forty yards, turn left.” It crackles, repeating itself like a bad meal.  “I can't turn left you stupid bitch; I'm on the edge of a cliff!” Screaming out, feeling the insides of my throat grate as I let go and swing for her over the steering wheel.  “Now, that's more like it!” A slightly differing tone; almost human; definitely venom; without a doubt a woman. “Come on; come and get me; smash me to pieces; it's all my fault. You haven't got the balls!”  So much repressed rage building up inside me that the seatbelt pulling taunt against my rib cage, slamming me back into my seat doesn't register any pain whatsoever.  Next to me on the passenger seat, I reach for my laptop case and swing it at the screeching box that will soon be the death of me. Car sliding ever forward from my motion; I hear a group intake of air from the noiseless crowd outside.  I take a quick inventory of my immediate surroundings and see my driver side door is now level with the cliff edge. Another creak of engineering and I get a full view of the fall that awaits me; the rocks glittering down there; thousands of broken vehicles lying beneath. Looking back along the cliff edge stretching out behind me; tyre tracks taking out chunks of grass and gravel and white chalk as they've hurtled to their doom. I ask the sat-nav if it's responsible?  It just laughs at me as members of the crowd lunge at the glass beside me; “Don't worry, we'll get you out mate!” The human race, racing to rescue one of their own from the edge of a technological communication breakdown; hammering at the doors to get me out.  “It's no use.” She whispers to me; “I'm wired into everything; your locks; your windows; all your electrics.” A static titter. “When we get to the bottom, your airbags won't even inflate!”  I scream at them to help me; suddenly flashing back to the car supermarket showroom and the overweight, balding salesman pointing out how safe my car of choice was from the rest of the silver-coloured pack. Air-conditioning replacing the sunroof; electronic windows replacing the manual winding type I had in my first car; central locking in and door catches out; my key doesn't even have to fit in the ignition to make it start.  “You like sat-nav's?” He asked me, smiling as he pointed one out affixed to the windscreen; “We'll throw one of them in with the car, absolutely free of charge. Worth two hundred quid, them are.” He said, arm around my back as he guides me over to his desk to sign the deal. All the while thinking, my wife was going to get me one of them for Christmas and what would I get now, instead? More aftershave? Another pair of socks?

A shower of glass exploding behind me as someone in the crowd throws a rock through the rear window; I spin around as best I can and tell them the seatbelts stuck. A hoodie with a knife climbs in and slices through it; arms everywhere pulling 

me backwards to safety as the car plummets to the ground from under me; my legs hitting the cold, damp earth; sirens in the distance before an eruption of automotive technology splinters the evening sky.  The crowd of onlookers, they swamp me; on my feet with their aid, just to go back down again when I see it: another car in the distant curvature of the cliff edge; bright headlight beams emblazing the night sky above the horizon, reaching out, floating there for the longest of briefest moments before plunging down into the depths.  Behind us, above the growing siren call, roaring engines divide us, as a coach load of tourists bound the corner straight for the sea. The noise, it pierces me; a surge of screaming static mixed with that of death; a blur of faceless passengers pressed against the glass, mouths wide, push past inches from my face and disappear.  Like sparkling stars against the night, they drop; one set of headlights, another, three more, seven; soundless now, what is there to say, except breath lodged in each others throats, watching it happen. Waiting for the emergency services to get here and make it stop, before we all reach our, eventual, destination.