| We race on the open road, defying the red blue strobes, urged on by the wailing siren song. I swing the lorry across four lanes, blocking the carriageways and dive out into the high performance sports car with you at the wheel. We take off as clouds cover the sun and night creeps in with a grey blanket twilight. An hour, two, we pull up to rest pause reflect outside a compound surrounded by high chainlink fencing. Inside a tall green water tank surrounded by trees waits like a silent sentinal, watching us as we touch grasp fall into our desire. It's night now. Quiet save for the sound of insects and the occasional night bird. We lean back on our seats and reflect on the day's heist. We laugh at our own genius and toast our success. The taking part is a high but the piquancy is in the winning. Time of our lives and we relish it with every fibre of our beings. This reverie is suddenly broken as a pick up truck swings into the service road next to us. We tense but the pickup ignores us, driving straight at the chain link gates to the compound. Head on. Collision course. We brace, proxies for the inevitable--but the inevitable doesn't come. The truck passes through the closed gates seeping through the meshwork like a syrupy fluid and reforms into a solid shape on the far side. We blink uncomprehending fascination at this impossibility and then the truck is gone, around a curve beyond the trees. The night is silent again and the insects resume their chant. A low mist rises up from the ground and we get out of the car. We walk up the dirt track by the side of the compound but can see the road goes further so we get back in the car and you drive us in, alongside the chainlink. Only now do we dimly begin to wonder at who would have put a dirt road here and for what purpose. A hundred yards, two hundred. Quarter of a mile in and the road ends in grassy banks. We pull up and get out to peer through the fence. Inside dark shapes but no movement. Could that be the outline of the pickup? We can't tell. The mist swims and parts a little and a voice cries out. Shapes. Moving our way. Shouting. Siht. Spotted. We run. The fog swallows us up, swirling silver moisture as we run across the dew damp grass. We realise how foolish we're being and how strange this has become. A pickup can't have oozed through those gates like that. We're high. We begin to laugh and run laughing now and the laughter takes our breath away, slowing us down. Ahead, blue green lights loom up, magical in the mist. Low white walls rise up in the pre-dawn light. Still amused we walk forwards to explore this new place. A temple perhaps? Where is the light coming from? As we wander the site, the mist descends back to the ground and then begins to drift away completely and we find ourselves in someone's garden. A large garden. With concrete follies plastered in white and a swimming pool. We laugh again. This must be someone's private estate. We explore the buildings, fear absent--a result of our earlier bravado and culmination. Preparations--the blue green lights--seem to have been placed for some kind of gathering but there is no one here. Yet. And as if on cue, behind us a rumbling breaks into our ramblings. Cars. We walk back to where we parked. Even before we arrive, we can see people are arriving, parking on the grass. Party goers. They're here for whatever the pool owners have prepared. Dozens of them. Hundreds of vehicles. They've blocked us in. We quicken our pace heading over to where you parked and shout. "Hey! Hey! We can't get out!" But the new arrivals smile at us, clearly not worried. "Later! We've just arrived. Later." They don't understand. We get back in the car and try to maneouvre around the vehicles to get back to the dirt track. Forward, reverse, forward, reverse, rutting the grass with our tyres. It's not taking us anywhere and the wheels are beginning to spin. In the east, the sun creeps over the distant hills, gold shafts of light spilling across to illuminate our plight. Panic now. We have to leave. Now. But it's too late. The wailing siren song drifts over with its tense caress from the far side of the nearby compound and the dark lines of authority draw in on all sides. The game is over. We don't want to join the party but the party is our only choice. I hate parties. � Keith Jefferies 2002 |
| Without Permission by Keith Jefferies |