On the way home.

Walking to my car, or to the tram stop from work I often pass cars that are striking in their flamboyance, clearly shouting their monetary value at the top of their lungs at passersby.

These hulks of steel, striking in their aesthetic make-up, with the value-heavy names like Mercedes, Porsche, Ferrari, Chrysler, Jeep, Audi - but essentially no different in purpose and ability than their 1930s or 40s counterparts - costing more than most people actually earn in a year, sit unattended in painted white lines down the side of main roads, or lined up in back lanes.

I walked past a CL Class Mercedes convertible tonight, sleek and black, stretched long like a sleeping black cat on the cool asphalt, its three pronged logo extending it’s grasp over the air, land and sea. I looked inside the window to see an iPod peeking out of the console, a collection of business notes flopped on the passenger chair.

I was struck by how brazenly these personal effects sat inside this immensely expensive designer label artifact. How openly this person’s life sat in this car, one small symbol of wealth sitting wrapped in another giant expensive wrapper, the whole thing mocking the passerby with it’s implied safety.

I’m not an admirer of cars generally. There are cars that strike me as attractive, as becoming to a passerby and this car was certainly within this range.

But something really hit me as I looked at this car.

There is no such thing as a car, not as a solid, irreducible element.

This was not a car.

It was really a collection of many cast pieces of metal, of shaped glass, of channelled solder and oil, of plastic and leather and whilst all of these things may have been shaped and moulded from quality materials, they remained, essentially, these elements were really no different to the cars that surrounded them, or, even, to the steel sign that stood not 3 metres from the sign proclaiming the hours one was permitted to park their car in the area.

I kicked the car’s door.

I surprised to find how easily it crumpled under my foot. The metal bent inwards, taking a not unsatisfactory impression of my shoe.

An alarm started to howl from inside the hood, and I ducked into the gutter behind the car.

After a few minutes I realised no one was coming to see what was going on. I imagined the collective groan of the people in the office buildings that surrounded me, the managers who stopped for a second to wonder if it was their car before, priming the next Powerpoint slide. The office workers who perhaps smiled to themselves; safe in the knowledge that no amount of over-time would ever earn them hearing that alarm.

I stood back up, almost disappointed at the lack of sirens and lights coming my direction.

The alarm continued to howl, which efficiently masked the noise of my elbow going through the side window.

I felt a rush, I’ve never done anything so completely outside of the rule set in my life.

I levered open the car's door lock.

They’ve really made it hard to unlock the doors from the inside in cars in recent years. In an ideal world, I guess, the Mercedes owner never has to leave the car, swaddled in the blanket of luxury; the scum forever on the outside. After all, on handsfree mobile phone conference calls, from high-priced car to the office, around the world, this is where the decisions are being made, people! Inside the womb of a luxury car are all the great new ideas birthed.

You don’t even have to think about turning on your windscreen wipers anymore, nor the headlights - they turn on with censors - the owner effectively turns on the car and doesn’t even have to play the game for themselves anymore - the rolls of the dice are pre-determined. Short of turning headlong into a truck or telegraph pole, the Mercedes owner can turn on their GPS, turn on their car, and turn on their classical music (or drive-time radio station of choice) and turn off their mind.

I picked up the iPod from the console. I unlocked it and pressed play. The last played track was “Matchbox 20 - Disease”. I picked up a few of the pieces of material and read the name the letters were addressed to.

Figuring that, despite my initial safety, with the alarm still going off, I only had a few minutes left, I went through my work-bag and retrieved a permanent marker. On the inside windscreen of the car I wrote these three things.

“Dear Mr. XXXXX XXXXXX [real name withheld]
Of [address withheld].
1. The song you last listened to as you drove to work was “Matchbox 20 - Disease”, it’s track length is 3:43, and you stopped listening to the track at 2:54.
2. Your cologne is too cheap for this car. It hangs on the leather.
3. Bright plumage leaves one open to predators.”

I laughed to myself, standing up from the car’s window and picking up my bag. I walked casually from the car’s ruined side, kicking the boot several times and spitting on the rear windscreen. I wished at that moment that I carried a pocket knife so I could puncture the tyres as well. That would leave the car totally violated.

I walked past a jogger on my way to my car, I couldn’t be sure if they’d seen me at the Mercedes. They looked into my eyes,
and quickly looked away. I couldn’t be sure what they’d seen, but they were afraid.

Good.