Futura

FUTURA

Robert White bustled his moderately overweight and considerable clumsy self over the small brick path towards his carport. Fumbling one handed through the pocket of his slightly ruffled suit, he retrieves his keys and manages not to drop the massively overstuffed briefcase that bulges at his side.

Inside the small frame of the carport doorway he presses the white plastic switch and beholds his pride and joy, a 1996 Subaru Futura in midnight blue. He pauses slightly to admire his beautiful car before climbing in and hurriedly reversing. The red scoria driveway makes a satisfying crunching sound as the tyres roll over the small stones, grinding them into each other.
Once Robert’s merged with the traffic of the freeway and is safely inserted in the brightly painted yellow lane designated for “ground vehicles”. His small eye’s flick from his speedo ,that reads 100, and his own tiny and dinky lane to the massive six rows of glittering and shiny hovercraft traffic next to him. The huge metal beasts zip past him on their fancy air cushions, the pretentious wankers driving them no doubt looking down their nose’s through the heavily tinted and bullet proof windows as they cruise by doing 230.

Robert never understood why hover owners were so damned up themselves, it’s not like their cars can fly, It’s only a few centimetres off the ground. Most of them can’t even drive they just climb into their cushy little cabins and the computer says “dear mister pratt sir, where to?” and off it goes.

Another thing that got up Roberts nose was the absolute lack of care they took with their cars. People would snicker and make jokes toward him when every Sunday without fail he would roll his 1996 Subaru Futura up onto his lawn and wash it. “Don’t make them like that anymore” they’d say voices thick with sarcasm almost threatening to say “thank god for that.”
Robert continued his scathing mental rhetoric until he reached the off ramp for his work. Turning his hands on the wheel, he sent the Futura gliding under the large metal “Chipco inc” sign and into the company car park. It was filled as usually. The large hovercrafts all resting heavily on their now deflated air cushions under the dim lights that hung from the ceiling. Robert smiled to himself, satisfied knowing that he had a park ready and waiting. There were two designated “ground car” parks and god knows that a hover trying to fit into a ground car park was like fitting something really big into something pretty small.

Robert rounded a grey concrete corner just in time to see a hover charging toward the ground car parks. It was a newer flasher model with the disgusting yet amazingly popular rust colour scheme, just as it was about to smash into the far wall it gratingly spun 90 degrees and stopped. The hideous thing now lurched longways right across the middle of the two spaces. Robert looked on mortified as the fit thirty something form of Tye Davidson leapt from the hovers robust and semi-armoured cab. “Hey Rob did ya see that!” he shouted quite impressed “Try getting your museum piece to pull that one!!” With that he strode off into the awaiting mouth of an empty elevator.

Vile thoughts of Tye Davidson rolled around in Robert’s head as he trudged back from the private and very expensive car park situated six blocks from work. Tye Davidson. The stealer of corner offices, promotions, ideas and now it seemed car parks. Robert had been working for Chipco since he was twenty three. In the twenty or so odd years he had seen quite a few royal bastards rise from the ranks and over take him, none so bad though as Tye.

Robert thought of seeing the boss about all this, march into his office and demand something be done, nothing would be done of course because Tye was the boss’s favourite lackey by far.
Work was going to be dull that day. It consisted of Robert sitting at a computer terminal tapping away, trying to model a new chip form for some modern stupidity. “Chipco” did everything. Phones, computers, houses and cars. Anything that could, should and shouldn’t have a computer inserted in it, did have. Robert plodded even more on today’s project. Model #7452 Hovercraft Navigation And User Identification. God, hovers. Robert would not help those bastard things. Especially since lately he’d noticed that the midnight blue duco of his car was being slowly eaten at by the high pressure air pockets made by them.

The radio in the Futura blared as Robert and it cruised along the yellow painted road of the “ground car” lane, a particularly catchy song was interrupted by the breakthrough news that none other than “Chipco’s” own Tye Davidson had invented a revolutionary new chip that would soon become the industry standard. “Great” Robert muttered “wonder which poor bastard he stole that idea from.”

The next few weeks were busy, busy, busy. Nothing but the Tye Davidson chip model #7453 what a breakthrough. Robert had begun to tape all of the news shows he appeared on. His young and athletic face topped with a blonde undercut ,that was now apparently quite stylish, would rant endlessly like an excited child over the new chip and it’s applications.

“The hovers can now go faster!! yet still be safer!!”. Just what the world needed. Robert soon learned how true the “faster” statement was. His poor Futura would rock violently from side to side as the pockets of air created by the endless flux of high speed traffic jolted it viciously. Officials said “ground cars” might not be safe anymore. A faze out program had begun, giving all “ground car” owners three months to “modernize their vehicles.”

On lunch break Robert sat alone in the company canteen drowning his sorrows with cups of coffee and sly swigs from a hip flask. His head slumped down in defeat. Tonight would be the last night he would drive his beloved 1996 Subaru Futura. He thought of all the good times they had had together. Way back when he was only twenty two he and his friends had been in a dodgy garage punk band, the futura had driven them to all of their few shows, they had even taken band photos with them standing against it.

He’d bought the car when it was only two years old and had had it since, he’d probably spent more money on it than anything else in his entire life.

Someone walked into the canteen but Robert didn’t look up, knowing his luck it would probably be Tye Davidson himself. “Hey Robert are you ok?” he looked up into the bespeckled face of Peter. “No Pete, I can’t drive my car anymore” he said in a depressed sighing tone.
“Yeah that chip has been standardised, so no luck for us traditionalists hey”
Robert looked up quickly “I didn’t know you had a car?”
“ Yep a 1999 Volkswagen Bug, lime green” he said quite proud.
“Never get to drive that again”
Peter began to leave the room then turned “hey Rob you think Tye invented that chip himself?”
“No way”
“That’s really bad you know, that means no-one knows if it has integrity, it could have all sorts of flaws or bugs.” Peter said as he departed from the room.
That nights drive home down the small and dinky yellow lane was a quiet and solitary time, or as quiet as it could be with god awful hovercrafts streaming by at two hundred and seventy five kilometres an hour.

The alarm screamed in Roberts ear. He slapped at it angrily. How could he face work today without his trusty Subaru. He didn’t want to have to que up at the train station with a company T-card in hand or “modernise his vehicle” even if he could afford to.

Come to think of it he didn’t think he would want to face work ever again. Screw them all, “Chipco” and those hover owning pratts. Robert got dressed and strode with purpose and grace towards the carport, keys slid into locks, turning with ease. The Subaru Futura Started with an angry purr. Small red stones of scoria crunched and popped as the car reversed fast out onto the road and into the yellow lane.

Robert slammed his foot to the floor, if this was his last drive it would be good. He wouldn’t take the looks through the tinted glass. He glanced over to the massive six lane of hover traffic and began to laugh. The glittering metal monsters had all come to a stop. Bumper to massive armoured bumper, grid locked. Revealing in almost pornographic detail just how hideous, malformed and just plain ugly they were. Maybe that’s why the drivers keep them moving so fast all the time.

The Futura took off screaming past all the dead traffic, Robert was smiling widely as his tormentors looked on in awe. He was the only moving thing for miles and they knew it, trapped in the cushy confines of their now brain dead smart cars unable to even command them to open the hatch.

Robert and his Futura swung into the “Chipco” car park and turned fast around the corner. The tyres screeched to a stop. Lying across the ground car space amid a cloud of dust, broken cinder bricks and smoke was the now destroyed body of a rust coloured hover. It’s front half protruded through the far wall whilst the torn and blistered air cushion that was now quietly burning could be found at the end of the isle.

The blonde head of Tye Davidson slowly emerged from the crumpled hatch, hair strewn everywhere and for quiet possible first time in his life a flustered look on his face. He looked at Robert.
“Are you going to help me or just stand there like a moron?” he yelled
Robert smiled “Hey Tye?”
“What?” Tye said angrily
“Try get your modern piece of shit to pull this” he got into his midnight blue 1996 Subaru Futura and drove away.