Originally published October 13, 2023
I’m just doing some random mental architecture here. I am on the balcony of my old apartment in town and I am looking down at the sea of automobiles in the yard below. And what I tried to get straight in my head was what would happen if they declared personal automobiles illegal?
Again, I always want to be fair. If you can show absolute life and death cause why your family requires an internal combustion engine automobile, you might get a break for a while until that electric vehicle replaces it. In the meantime, this is about public health and safety and the end of clinical madness and psychopathic actions.
The problem lies with the government. Only one sentence of sarcasm here. This time they do not get to tell us their moral views or suggest how perhaps we shall live while constantly waiting for an opportunity to stab us in the back and harm us if we should do something ungental towards you. This time, the government would be responsible for general dissemination of real information that does not cause panic or undo stress. We are going to need a lot of recommendations but also we are going to need a lot of guarantees that their check, whatever absurd amount of money they say they were making from the car, give them their check. If we’re not doing cars anymore, let them have their check.
Then we have the physical infrastructure of removing the existing automobiles. Definitely, public assistance would be helpful. This isn’t a passive thing where you sit there smoking cigarettes and drinking vodka and cursing how they have taken away you’re basic right to drive a car and then spit. This is helping us get rid of a severe societal cancer once and for all so, if there are a lot of cars, we could use a lot of strong guys to help move them without turning on the engines and getting them to the electric trucks. Please, electric trucks.
But then let’s be fair. What about people who really like their cars. And I mean this from personal experience. Cars are the motherload of drugs. If you have a car, there is no such drug in the world that can compare with the feeling of power and speed while being completely insulated from the elements. And every single moment that you are at the wheel, there is an endorphin rush because you have laser-like reflexes. Ergonomics. It’s built for your ass. It’s built for your psychological and physical comfort. It’s built as if it is for your space journey from which you never ever need to return. To have a car is to dream. To have a car is to have everything.
And to men, having a car means having a dick. What is the marketplace these days for road prostitution? I don’t know the going rate. I’m not really in the tourist business. I’m kind of anti-tourist. You probably have your own style of diseases. You don’t need to come here for our road whore diseases. Keep your own road horror diseases and you’ll be fine. Or maybe you’re a chemist and you want to make your own.
But let’s just say that being in the car and listening to the radio is enough sometimes. Let’s say that we really do like our cars. I mean, if you can afford one or have the wear with all to understand that you should immediately get one, there are electric conversion kits that will keep you on the road. Put some solar panels on the roof and maybe a windmill somewhere and you are a free person. Fly oh fly free bird yeah.
But let’s say you need more than that. You could have a conversation that went something like, hey babe, I’m down. I’m going to go for a drive. Okay, sweetie. Do you need anything? No. I’m good. And then he walks outside and gets into his car and closes the door and it turns on the radio and sits there staring straight ahead. Once or twice he tried turning the wheel and operating the pedals but mostly he just like sitting there and staring. In his mind he was going great places really fast. It was like a video game.
Oops. Business warning! Create not only electric conversion kits for cars but gaming conversion kits. Every window of your car is a sincere screen at whatever dramatic technology we are going these days. The car is completely immersive and will even vibrate for you at specific locations in your chair as a treat for doing something good.
Anyway, this is all a process that eventually gets finished. And now we have a yard with no cars. There are some shitty things for children to do. Some broken glass and stray bottles and garbage. It’s definitely an unappreciated plot of land.
Life though has a way of rewarding us for being good. You do not have to believe me. I swear by my life that this is just the truth. Sometimes life just smiles at you when you are a good person.
My thinking is that without the auto fumes, the entire town suddenly realizes it can breathe again. For some, for the first time in their lives. For many, for the lives of many generations. But maybe this would be a case of and many generations to come. But maybe this time we might believe it’s possible. Maybe this time we understand that they no longer poison us every day or require us to destroy our land simply to have enough money to live. And, because they are Belarusian, they will take what they get and make something nice with it if left alone. I believe this. I believe this was all my heart that if you left them alone, if everyone left everybody alone, we would all probably start being really good people really quickly.
So now I’m standing on my balcony and looking down at these absolutely awesome raised bed gardens. It’s fall of course but my goodness, look at how many pumpkins they grow! However they managed to get the materials, they had the wear with all to put it together. You can see the craftsmanship and the attention. You can see that they worked at this every day. It’s a monument. It’s a sculpture. It’s a living art sculpture of food and community.
Oh yeah, and it turns out that that apartment was kind of excellent without the addition of toxic fumes. It seems that there was a lovely jet stream that came down the river and ended up as a little pocket right not that balcony that always seemed to allow a sweet gentle breeze. It’s really lovely when you live in an old town next to a river. There is something about living in a beautiful old town next to a river.
