Breaker Breaker, This Is Pocket Lemur

Alex Finniss / 29 min read / Cli-Fi Imaginarium
20 May 2022
An emotional journey of a trucker as she tries to find a good noodle joint. (Existential crisis preferred but not mandatory).

Breaker breaker, this is Pocket Lemur. Anyone got a 20 on a good noodle joint?

I’ve always wanted to do that, and I could really go for anything right now. Anything that’s vaguely food.

This feels weird, talking into the ether like this. No one to hear me unless someone’s randomly scanning the radio bandwidth. In which case, what’re you doing? How are you doing? Find the aliens yet? Don’t worry, you’ll find them. The truth is out there.

I don’t really know what to say. This is a bit new to me.

I guess I’d say thank you for listening, but no one is. If you are listening then… please don’t. I don’t really want to be heard.

Pocket Lemur, over and out.

~

Breaker breaker, this is Pocket Lemur. I almost made a pancake today.

I couldn’t work out which lane I needed to be in and then this stupid electric Vespa decided to pass me on the inside. I almost squished them into the railing when I eventually turned into the right lane, which was the left. I use the word ‘them’ not to be politically correct, though I do try to be. I try to keep up, I really do. But here I’m using it pejoratively. I don’t want the ‘them’ community and Vespa drivers confused. Vespa drivers aren’t human.

You know what, I was going to stop. But I have so much more frustration to vent. Like, I was even indicating and everything! Dude, I’m a huge thing. Gi-gagana-normous. I don’t know what I’m doing or where I’m going, so learn to be either patient or a pedestrian, or end up a pancake.

Of course the truck saved them, much as I wish it maybe hadn’t. A thousand cameras sensing, seeing, feeling the space around it. Gently applying the brakes and resisting my commands. At first I didn’t understand what was going on, so I tried to turn harder. But the algorithms must have been pretty confident that I was being an idiot and overruled me. That’s fair. I’d overrule me too.

Not that I’m complaining. I know why I’m here, I know my place in this relationship. This truck could drive itself far better than I ever could. It’s an algorithm trained on more hours of complex scenarios than hours I will ever even live. I’m here for two reasons, my human judgement (god help them) and ability for object permanence. Turns out you can’t train those things… yet.

In China the trucks really do drive themselves. Of course we could have gone that route, saving me the hassle of sitting here for hours on end. But we had to have that one accident caused by a car not being able to recognise that a person running behind a car didn’t just disappear. That they would in fact reappear, probably still running and probably not looking where they were going.

It didn’t matter how much scientists and analysts showed how a human, even an Olympic table tennis player, would have almost certainly also hit the pedestrian. That neurocircuitry would have applied the brakes even slower than physical circuitry.

But the tabloids had already started frothing at the mouth, philosophy graduates and professional angry people beating the war drum. Not a physicist or programmer among them. But that was that. Freedom of the press, am I right?

So now I’m assigned here, a glorified babysitter to a being far more intelligent than I will ever be, serving out my two years of national service as a truck driver. That being said, I’m sat on my ass, warm and not particularly stressed by anything other than Vespa creatures. There are worse jobs.

Pocket Lemur, over and out.

~

Breaker breaker, this is Pocket Lemur, we got a 10-43 on the I29, maybe a 10-42. I hope it’s not. I hope it’s neither, but if I’m going to be stuck in traffic, I’d rather that no one was hurt. I got a coffee at a service station, but the traffic was still there.

I am kind of bored though, so I’m talking to you again. Hello, Nobody. How’s life?

Y’know, this is my first time driving one of the big trucks, travelling across the world. Eating the miles and asphalt with a monster at my feet. It’s a bit intimidating.

My first posting was in Bristol, and that was quite a leap for me. Driving one of the smaller electric trucks through the narrow streets, making the smaller deliveries. That was terrifying enough. The truck was still the biggest thing I had ever driven; I’d never driven anything I’d had to climb into. Up in the cabin I was like a giant. I got to see the tops of people’s heads rather than just their chins. That was an experience. I felt drunk on that power.

But then I hit the streets. The rivers of buses and trucks were so overwhelming, and I never knew which lane I should be in! I mean, I get it. You print the information on the road so that people have to slow down and pay attention to what’s in front of them. But that only works when there’s not a series of buses in front of you blocking all sight. And those damn taxis nipping into every gap that you leave. I just want to see if I need to change lanes, can’t you chill for just a second? Have some common decency for the road literature!

Phew. I needed that. Venting and a venti. Maybe I’m better at this trucker radio thing than I thought.

But as I left the city river, entering into the tributary streams and narrow side-lanes, I felt consumed. By the mountainous buildings rising left and right, by the graffiti and rage, by the hundreds and thousands of people patrolling the streets, by the sheer weight of humanity. I wasn’t in Kansas any more, and I definitely wasn’t in my little village hamlet in Staffordshire.

I let the city consume me, I let myself fall into it. Just another face, just another set of boots. I let it eat me and trusted that it would spit me out somewhere. Use me, feed me, house me. I know I lost myself, but I felt too small and delicate to be anything but a drop of water in its great ocean.

It’s just comforting.

Pocket Lemur, over and out.

~

Breaker breaker, this is Pocket Lemur, I’m stuck behind a yo-yo.

This car in front of me. They’re speeding up and slowing down, as if they think the speed limit works by some kind of average. It’s incredibly frustrating. I don’t think the truck’s algorithms will let me ram it out the way, make a pancake out of them.

I’m having to give them a lot of distance, travelling much slower than I’d like. Every time I try and overtake they speed up, and Molly starts hinting to me that I’m driving inefficiently.

I don’t like travelling fast, but I got to pee and the next services are 37 km away or… I guess like… 23 miles away?

Lemur, out.

~

Breaker breaker, it’s me, Pocket Lemur. I’m still stuck behind that yo-yo.

Every song that gets played just makes me want to pee some more, so I’m going to talk to you.

What should I talk about?

I named my last truck Holly, after my first best friend. I decided to name this one Molly. It felt like a Molly, and kept to a nice pattern. I’m not sure what I could call the next one. Bolly? I’m not sure if that’s okay any more. I mean, my girlfriend’s Indian, or of Indian descent, but I’m pretty sure that just makes it worse. I guess Dolly would be nice, I could fill my journeys with Ms. Parton’s music. It’d probably get old pretty quick, though, and if you listen to them, the lyrics are incredibly sad.

Holly was quiet, but Molly is loud. She growls at me. She’s a Super Truck and she knows it. Crafted and manipulated in a lab for the utmost efficiency. A computer constantly adjusts and fiddles with every aspect of the engine’s functioning. Constantly optimising for how I’m driving. Lowering and raising the suspension to improve aerodynamics. Adjusting air intake, charging electric batteries every time I hit the brakes.

She’s not pretty. Pretty is what you see in bookshops and clubs and at work. Pretty is normal and everywhere. Molly’s a model. Distinctive, elegant, chiselled for the job she was meant to do.

I don’t feel in charge here. It feels more like a conversation. I wanted to hang back from this yo-yo in front of me, and she agreed. Changing gear automatically as I brought the speed down. I know she’s just composites and algorithmic machine-learning programs, but I think she likes me.

Ooh, I see the services coming up now.

Pocket Lemur, over and out.

~

Breaker breaker, this is Pocket Lemur. Apologies for the upcoming 10-11, but I’m in France!

I’ve never been out of the UK before, but I’m here!

You know what the crazy thing is? I barely even realised it. I drove here.

I woke up, drove for a bit, got into the train and then was just in France. Like, just in France. I never left solid ground. I’m just here.

Going to another country always feels like you need to make a giant leap. A jump into another world, into a new, braver you. But I’m still me. I didn’t leap, I just kind of shuffled.

I’m checking my maps now. It looks like I was briefly in Belgium. The motorway I travelled down just casually curved into Belgium. Okay. As you do. I woke up this morning having only lived in one country, and here I am now. Two countries in one day. World-traveller Alice, at your service.

The scenes around me have taken on a new perspective. I’m noticing that the fields I’m travelling past are subtly different to British fields. Flatter. Squarer. Lacking the higgledy-piggledy curves. The trees are closer to the road too, and they’re… further apart. Less crowded. Everything’s the same, but different. The greens are the same. Of the copses, the trees and bushes and grasses. The silver is the same. Of the sun flashing off the rivers. The ambers and purples are the same too. Of the sun beginning to dip his head below the horizon. But it still feels different. Is it possible for light to have a French accent?

I still feel tethered to my Britain. The route that I’ve blazed – what am I saying? I didn’t blaze anything. The route that I’ve shuffled, the memory of it anchoring me to home.

That too is a comfort. I think I would’ve been scared if I’d travelled here alone, by plane. A giant jet-propelled leap. But with Molly beneath me, and my heart resting in Staffordshire, I think I’ll be able to sleep soundly tonight.

 ~

That service station was the best I’ve ever seen!

I mean, breaker breaker, that pickle park was the best I’ve ever seen.

I didn’t know they could be that clean. There were showers that weren’t just a wall of dripping rusty shower heads of variable warmth. I got my own shower room, with a lock! A lock! And a shelf for my soap and shampoo. I didn’t plan on taking a shower, I just needed to empty the tank, as it were. But how could I pass up an opportunity like this? It’s good feeling clean again.

The drinks machine worked too. That’s something Britain can’t quite get right. All of us National Service drivers get free drinks – the government had to do something to sweeten the deal of these jobs. What did it take to quell the protests? Diplomatic negotiation? Nope. Just the promise of free lattes. We are still British, but we love our coffee.

Each role in the National Service program had its perks and benefits. For those posted to trucking positions, the promise was to refurbish the service stations and to up their security (especially for us female truckers) and, at each one, free hot drinks. Max two per two hours. That way you could travel the world in a modicum of comfort without having to worry about every male stare as you went into the restroom. The ones you were now having to use so often because of all the free coffee you were drinking.

To the extent that the British system can ever actually make good on a promise or make things better, the government did fulfil its promise.

This is what people don’t get about ‘Great’ Britain. Once you step away from the ‘sirs’ and ‘ma’ams’ of the glitzy Harrods and sparkling 5-star London hotels, the rest of Britain is just a testament to ‘good enough’.

In Switzerland a promise of clean rivers leads to crystal-clear sapphire ribbons snaking their way even through state capitals. Whereas when Britain promised clean water, we had a successful experimentation in less brown-green. It was comforting – not the water, the ‘good enough’ attitude. There was solace in knowing nothing needed to be perfect; you could be yourself in a culture like that. Gods bless our lazy sceptred isle.

But it did also mean that the free drinks machines at service stations would run out of the most popular options too soon. It became customary for professional truckers to leave a box of tea bags next to the machine because, more often than not, the hot water was the only thing that worked, and even that managed to taste stale.

In Europe, though, pretentious as they were, it meant toffee lattes and white hot chocolates. The machines didn’t sputter from congealed coffee grains or taste burnt or stale, things just worked. It was a nice change.

What the hell is this junction? Which lane do I need to be in?

Hold on, I don’t know where I’m going here. Speak later.

 ~

Breaker breaker, this is an… awestruck Pocket Lemur. 10-17, I need to sound this off so that I don’t forget it.

Mountains aren’t consuming, like city skyscrapers – they’re divine. A friend of mine from France joked that we don’t have mountains in the UK. I told him where he could put that. We definitely had Mount Snowdon. I’d been there.

That was not a mountain.

These were mountains.

Sleeping giants with pointy white hats. I thought the buildings of Bristol reached for the sky, but they were just babies stretching their tiny fingers. These things, though, reached the heavens. Touching the crystal blue above. Their weight is immense. A forceful presence pushing at the edges of my consciousness. What must it be to grow up next to these? To grow up feeling so small? A city will consume you, digest you, use you as fuel. These mountains might swallow you and never even notice your presence.

Hold on, there’s a rest stop coming up. I’m going to pull over.

Pocket Lemur, over and out.

~

We are nothing.

Molly and I, me and my monster.

She’s just a worm.

The mountains look like they’re crying, the sun glinting off water escaping from their white hats.

I think they’re crying a lot. No one around me seems to care.

I know what that’s like. No one cares about my tears either.

If nothing is being done about these giants crying, then I have no hope.

~

Breaker, I’m above the clouds now.

I’m having to concentrate hard on these roads, winding through valleys bigger than my whole world. I can see to the horizon from up here, the endless blue. The turbulent sea of white clouds. Below me. Up is down. Up is up. The mountain casts a shadow over the clouds so large that all of Bristol would fit inside it.

My eyes are adjusting now to this broader world. I’m seeing that the mountains are alive. Not the spires of igneous rock, but with little plants and animals. In Britain I don’t think I ever looked past cows, sheep and pigeons. I didn’t see anything more than this in Europe either. But now I can see. I can see birds that I wouldn’t know how to begin to name. I can see goats and rabbits. There must be smaller things darting around in the undergrowth. Flitting between the trees. I want to look, but I need to pay attention to the road ahead of me. Would Molly stop me from tumbling off the road? Does she trust me that much? I don’t want to risk it.

The horizon is so vast. So distant. I’ll get there before sunset, and I’ll keep on reaching for it tomorrow.

Pocket Lemur, over and out.

~

Breaker breaker, this is Pocket Lemur. This might be my last message.

I started these messages because I was scared. It feels silly admitting that now.

It feels silly having been scared. What a pointless feeling in the grand scheme of things. Nothing means anything. Whether I cry or I’m happy, whether I spread laughter and joy or misery, I am insignificant. Impotent.

You know, I thought I’d have to use this radio a lot more to talk to people. That terrified me. What if I couldn’t understand them? What if I said things wrong? What if I hit the wrong buttons?

None of that mattered.

This is comforting. Nothing matters. Even good enough is too high a bar for the grand scheme of things.

Lemur, over and out.

~

Hey, breaker breaker? This is Pocket Lemur. I’m back.

I’ve just got to get this out of me.

Switzerland passed by in a blur. It wasn’t quick. It was much. Too much. I saw everything and in it I could see nothing.

I’m in the Black Forest now, Southern Germany. I can see how it gets its name, it’s so dark in here. Even the leaves are dark, filled with dark, verdant chloroplasts to turn whatever crumbs of light they can into food and growth and, ultimately, to try to make it even darker down here.

There’s a stream next to me, an old bridge has collapsed into it.

There is so much life. In a band of light there are entire worlds. Insects smaller than I can see, birds faster than I can track. The bubbles in the water and, as I stare, I see in it shapes. Fish, eating insects desperate to survive. In a race to shed their skin and join their companions above. A rabbit pokes its head out of the underbrush, eyes darting. It sips some water and then scurries away. I see their struggle, their yearning to survive. Their desperation.

It’s beautiful.

The richness of it.

The stories that will never be told.

Both too small and too epic.

Life doesn’t just find a way, it wants to find a way.

I see it in the flitting eyes of the rabbit. I see it in the bird, in the fish, in the insects.

I look in the mirror, and I don’t see it in myself.

Pocket Lemur, out, wondering when I’ll be over.

~

Breaker breaker? This is Pocket Lemur.

I’m not over.

I don’t know what I am.

A speck?

That’s far too dramatic. Far too big.

I reached the Rhine today. A river embedded in legend. For centuries civilisations clashed over this patch of water. Seeing it now, it’s just a river. It should have been left alone.

As you go further north it just becomes dirtier. Filled with silt and boats. Getting close to it, you can see patches of pollution. Plastic and oils spreading out across the surface.

Two millennia ago this was the demarcation between civilisation and legend. Now it’s just another tool, to be used and abused. There’s nothing special about this river; it’s just like the rest of us.

Lemur, out.

~

I got a hotel room last night, breaker breaker. I was ahead of schedule, so I thought I’d treat myself to a warm meal and a proper bed.

The hotel was quite empty. I didn’t ask for a sea view, but I got one. I spent a good part of the evening just watching it. Watching the beach, and the waves. Someone had spent a great deal of effort and dug a giant penis shape into the beach. Is it irony that I would probably call them dicks if I met them in real life?

There was a child building a sandcastle further on. It was clumsy, and not exactly pretty. But they were trying. It was sad. Alone, trying to make something. As the waves inched closer, a wave lapped up against the castle and the child set to frantically building a wall in front it. To protect their creation. In vain they piled sand high. All of a sudden a wave struck the wall and rose over it. Speckling the child’s skin with water and sand. Still the child struggled as the water crept closer and closer.

Whilst they weren’t paying attention, the water seeped around behind them and ate away at the castle foundations. They turned just as the ramparts fell with a splash. The desperation rose up as they tried to force the sand back up onto their castle, and then fizzled as soon as the next wave dashed against them. Sending specks of spray off the child’s back and then dragging more of the castle down to the ground. The child picked up their spade and walked away. Defeated.

I watched as the waves ate the castle until nothing remained.

A lesson for the child. For the futility of doing anything in a world that is so vast and powerful, so dismissive of our efforts.

But then I looked over to where the sand had been graffitied. The waves that had washed away the castle were also washing away the jagged lines in the sand.

That wave made up of so many small particles that, from up on my balcony, even millions of them grouped together were hard to see – those particles had, together, erased the scar.

What it must be to be a particle in that wave.

Working together, invisible as one, but infinite together.

I think I want to join them. And then, when I evaporate, I’ll look back and see that I leave behind an ocean.

Pocket Lemur, over and out.

~

Breaker breaker, this is once again Pocket Lemur.

A big shout-out to my man Dave. I know that’s not your real name, but I forgot to ask. That was so rude of me. My mind was so everywhere when you helped me. And Dave suits you, it’s a kind name. You can always trust a Dave.

The truth is, we have trucks that can drive themselves, huge multinational efforts to save our bogs and peatlands, miniature nuclear power plants and entire legions of high-tech plant hybrid buildings with built-in wind turbines. But I still have discomfort being who I am.

A woman, medium height. I’d like to optimistically say that I’m also okay-ish looking.

I don’t have a problem being any one of these things. Well, I have a problem with just being, especially the ‘me’ part of being. But outwardly, I am what I am. I was born a woman, and I think I knew when I was five I wanted to remain a woman. Beyond that I’ve never had to give it much more thought, I’m just comfortable in my identity. But I became uncomfortable when I was 13, when other people realised I was a woman and made themselves too comfortable with it.

When I first noticed the eyes, they felt sharp, jabbing at my thighs and shoulders. I don’t know this for certain. Nor do I know that I noticed people bumping into me on the train. Hands brushing me on the bus. Maybe this had always happened. But I remember noticing. Mouths that said ‘sorry’, but eyes that looked disingenuous. Maybe even a little happy.

The eyes are no longer sharp as they land on me, but they feel heavy. A heavy blanket dampening everyday activities. A necessity for a permanent semi-alertness to eyes that linger too long. That might signal danger. That might later lead to comments like, ‘She shouldn’t have been walking alone’, or ‘What was she wearing?’ Eyes that sometimes made me wait until another female trucker pulled up before I felt safe to use the bathroom.

That’s why I felt immediately uneasy as I pulled up at the service station.

I felt his eyes on me almost the second I hopped out of the cab. So much so that I pulled my jacket around me as I set about refuelling and recharging Molly. Attaching the pipes and cables to my truck. (This is so cool, by the way. They replaced diesel with an electrically charged fluid. Same infrastructure, new ecotechnology.) I was just going about my normal activities. Once she was all tucked in, I looked up and saw him still staring at me. Subtly. Hesitant. Stealing uncertain glances.

There were plenty of people around, even a few families, probably on a family vacation. Enough people to be safe even if he was a weirdo, but still I was uncomfortable. I jumped into my cab and ruffled around in the back. Not wanting to risk an ambush by a coffee machine, I figured I’d get a book and distract myself. Reading a book is humanity’s best social signal of ‘I don’t want to talk to anyone’. Besides, it was a good book.

As I climbed back out of the cabin, book in hand, I saw that my starer was gone. Probably gone to get a coffee or something. I felt myself let go of the tension I’d been holding, not realising how taut I’d become. My shoulders hooked around Molly’s warm body as I leant back against her, her various fuels trickling into her giant belly.

The hum of the pumps sang me into a daze as I fell into the world of fantasy. Oh, to be a mighty sorceress saving the world from wilful princes!

A movement beside me made me jump, my skin prickling.

‘Hey?’ an accented voice called out. American, but as if something was caught in his throat, so probably Dutch or Belgian.

No amount of adorable European accent could settle my thumping heart, though, which was now beating in my chest so hard I thought I’d be able to see it through my jacket.

The man had a heavy 5 o’clock shadow. It had probably been more than one 5 o’clock’s worth. His breath smelled of stale coffee, but then again, mine probably did too. And he stood up straight with a genuine smile.

‘Hey?’ I replied.

‘Pardon the interruption, Madam, and this might be a really weird question, but are you Pocket Lemur?’ 

His question was gentle, but it still turned my blood to ice. How did he know? Was he some kind of creep? Had he been listening to me? Following me? Sitting, listening to an empty radio bandwidth in the hopes of hearing my voice? A female voice?

He continued looking at me. Began to look as uncomfortable as I was as the silence stretched and grew.

‘I’m a Pocket Lemur,’ I finally managed, mouth dry.

‘Haha, breaker breaker, Pocket Lemur? Yes?’

‘Over and out, haha.’ My laugh was short and hollow.

‘I don’t suppose I could check your radio for you?’

Check my radio? The radio was in my cabin, which would mean he would need to climb into it. My personal space. But… I wouldn’t be in the cabin, I guess. His face was kind, but that didn’t necessarily mean safe. I gesticulated upwards to the unlocked door. He smiled and jumped up the steps, clambering into the seat with what must have the practice of much of a lifetime.

I used the time to manoeuvre into a slightly more visible position, a little closer to the refreshment building. My book hung by my side, limp, page lost, as I circled. Stepping nonchalantly out of the shadow of Molly. Giving a wide berth as I tried to peer in and see what he was doing. He seemed to be fiddling with the back of my radio, which somehow now felt strangely personal. As though some intimate part of me was being violated. I also knew that I wouldn’t be able to fix it if he was just some troll who was messing with it for some kind of practical joke.

He jumped down, politely ignoring my suspicious stare and closing the door as he did so. He bent down to straighten out his trousers before turning to me.

‘Just as I expected, your radio wasn’t hooked up to your speakers. Now you’ll be able to hear us when you talk – a bit more two-way.’

The cogs in my head physically felt as if they were whirring and slotting into place. Grinding into places I didn’t want them to be. Realisation dawning even as I tried forcing the pieces to slot into different shapes, trying to make a new conclusion fit beside the irrefutable one. I only managed to whisper back at him.

‘You’ve been able to hear me?’

‘Oh yeah,’ he said. He was a bit slow in reading my reaction, but quickly added. ‘But we’ve all really enjoyed it.’

That word stuck in my head.

‘All?’

‘Yeah, it’s one of the main radio frequencies for us 90s-kids truckers. A social bandwidth, but it’s been pretty dead for a while. Nothing left to talk about. Not until the next Pokemon game comes out. You livened it up a bit.’

‘This is so embarrassing.’

‘Embarrassing? You didn’t know you were doing it?’ His face contorted from confused to empathetic embarrassment, landing on a sympathetic grin. ‘Oh, that is funny. We thought you might be one of those bloggers or something, but we got confused when you didn’t link to a website or respond to us. It’s been… sort of motivational. It’s brought us together.’

‘I’m glad that my… oh god, mindless, depressing babble has motivated people.’ 

My head fell into my hands. Why couldn’t it have motivated people to change the radio bandwidth? What kind of things had I even been saying? It all felt like grey haze as I struggled to recall how many details of my life I’d let slip to an unknown number of unknown people.

The man didn’t seem to know what to say. I didn’t want to say anything ever again. We lingered. Then he said something that’s stuck with me.

‘You know, it sounds like you’ve been on a bit of a journey. Maybe this isn’t the best part of yours. But truth is, everyone’s on a journey. In our trucks, in our cars, through life. It’s not the same journey, we don’t all think the same things or come to the same conclusions. But we all struggle and we all change. We all try and find a place for ourselves, or lose ourselves in the flow of life so that we don’t have to think too hard about it.’ He paused then, hesitating. ‘I’m sorry, I’m rambling. But if you ever come back to Europe, swing by Rotterdam. The bells are beautiful. They were my ocean, y’know. No giant sand penises, though.’ He took out his phone and swiped it against mine. ‘Here’s my number. I can recommend a few good coffee places.’ He saw my eyes squint with suspicion. ‘Good places to sit alone and watch the world go by as you sip coffee.’ He smiled, and I regretted the accusation that had flitted through my mind. 

He left then. I watched him walk to the service station hut. I was vaguely aware of him leaving again with a coffee in hand. I just stood there, processing my embarrassment, until the beep chimed on the fuel charger, telling me that I was good to go.

Thank you, Dave. Thank you for your kindness, thank you for fixing my radio and thank you for your words.

I’m still devastatingly embarrassed, but also incredibly grateful.

Looking back, I appreciate how brave you were. It’s not an easy thing to approach a stranger, especially one as suspicious as I was, to help them out. To share a little something of yourself with them too, a little part of your journey. I’m not apologising for being suspicious, but I do apologise for not recognising that you were part of the ocean I want to join. The ocean of kind people doing kind things, and, through trillions of tiny daily interactions, making the world a kinder place.

I want to take that part of you with me on my travels. Erasing the penises from the world’s beaches.

Thank all of you too, using this frequency, thank you for bearing with me. And sorry for hogging the airwaves for so long.

This isn’t my last message. But it will hopefully be my last monologue.

Pocket Lemur, over, out and, for once, listening.

~

This is Electric Dragon Wagon, message to Pocket Lemur. A bit late, but the best noodle joints are definitely in Austria.

~

Solar Snowflake here. Electric Dragon Wagon doesn’t know what they’re talking about. Everyone knows Zurich has the best noodle places.

~

Swamp Fox butting in. Do you all not know what good noodles are? The best ones come from…


Credit: John Towner, Unsplash

Avatar photo Alex Finniss UK Alex is a data analyst with a passion for behavioural psychology. He occasionally takes a break from this wild rock and roll lifestyle to write short horror, sci-fi, and (now) cli-fi stories. He resides in Bath but doesn't own one. View all posts
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