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Parked outside the house was a rather strange automobile, not peculiar, just suspicious. It had all the markings of a vehicle that did not want to be spotted, but of course sometimes people will look closer for the inconspicuous because of it. This was one of those times, Walter had grown bored of his seemingly endless search for the good life, and was now ready to accept that things weren’t as they always appear. His curiosity was impossible to ignore. He convinced himself to have a better look as long as he did not confront anybody and risk being embarrassed or beaten up. He shook himself aware and, using the back door, snuck outside and round the house to gaze at the car without the obstruction of the window. He knelt by the gate and peered through the gaps in the fence, fearing the dirt that could, without warning, flick and fly all over his clean clothes. Fussily he reached for a handkerchief in case any such bad luck would occur, which it would, his rustling around in his pocket made as discreet as possible to avoid detection. Walter still could not make out anything about the parked vehicle and its contents, the exterior was black, the windows were tinted, it looked new but not flash, and it had a hard grimace adorning its front grill. His mind immediately kept on flicking back to all those action films he was addicted to as an adolescent, “They’re most probably gangsters in there, and they’re collecting their monetary debt with pain.” These general thoughts swam about his head. The next obvious thought came to him afterwards, “Whatever could they be doing in this neighbourhood?” He didn’t really know the people who lived next door to him very well let alone the occupants of the houses opposite, but their house peered awkwardly at his own dwelling. He always suspected them spying on him, judging his every action, an Olympic panel was in there with score cards, he was sure. Every time he made a mistake or did something rather quaint he could feel their cold stares running through the walls. But now all he could feel was the table, and it was turning. These people, whoever they were, had no clue of his spying on them and there was, therefore, nothing they could do. All the power was now his, he would decide what is funny business and what was not. This was television now and he made up an audience of one, a world created for him by everybody else.
Quickly though the sensations began to wear thin, and all that was left was to do what he promised he wouldn’t and get closer to his subjects. Unhooking the fence latch he gently eased open the gate that sat by a hedge concealed from the street. He then slipped through the open gate and promptly shut it behind him, his nostrils were now ripped open streaming in oxygen. He creeped behind the hedge growing ever closer until he could smell engine oil. A brief glance over the hedge uneased him but it was necessary to gain coordinates; he was right by the street just a few paces from the car, still though nothing could be seen within it. Suddenly he had the idea of throwing stones at the vehicle and seeing if anything stirred, a brilliant plan. So he rummaged in the unruly muck and tried to find the perfect projectile for his biding; too small and it would not be noticed, too big and it would cause too much damage. Finding a stone the correct size takes lots of planning, it must be felt up first to see if its not just a dirt clod and then a quick dummy throw to see if it has good grip. Once Walter had found the correct stone he had to direct it accurately towards the motor, well it wasn’t that hard to miss but it still had to have thought in it. First he tried to fashion a nice gap between the hedge to get a good visual, but that didn’t quite work and caused a lot of noise, then he tried some stealthy tactics of going low and ducking under the hedge, he could just about see the wheels then and the general direction of which to throw plus distance. He lobbed the stone at the car ungraciously, and heard the plonk against the metallic paint surface. Waited a while and nothing stirred. He waited even longer even threw another stone but still no signs of life, so he got brave and stood upright above the hedge strolling out into the bright beam of the street light; when he heard in the distance a car approaching, he wasn’t going to just stand there like a hooker so he strolled casually around looking uninterested, trying to appear as if nothing was going on at all. The moving car eventually passed and he thought it time to approach the still car.
If anyone was inside they would have surely given sign of their noticing him by now, he was acting so suspiciously. He could now hear his footsteps as if they were thunder, they seemed like the triumphant marching of a soldier into occupied territory. The flags were waving and all of the subjugated peoples kneeling at his mercy, praying that he should just receive them as wallpaper and not treat them as a special case making an example of them in front of the rest of the population; he could see their fear in himself but only vaguely, it did not interest him to be self-critical at this point. He could now begin to pick out details of the car that he couldn’t from afar before, like the thick splashing of mud that coated the car behind its wheels, and the marks that the windscreen had made over many rainy days spent travelling. He wanted so badly to see inside, and so he just reached out to open the door as if it was his car he was opening. To his amazement the door swung open as he tugged at it and he could finally see inside. The only thing he could think was that it was too easy, “It must be a setup.” They might be watching even now, noting down my movements and experiences, planning to wake me in the morning, when my head had been misplaced from the excitement of the night before, and expose me to the cold shower realisation of my misdeeds. I can turn back right now, “It’s just stupid curiosity!” And with that he swung the door close with a thud. As he did so suddenly he saw from the opposing neighbours house a curtain swing open and a face pop out from behind, it disappeared and then the whole body came back but this time instead of the opposing neighbours door; Walter seemingly paralysed at this point. “What do you want?” This strange figure belched out. “Were you messing around with that car? I’ll tell the owner and he won’t be pleased!” That was all he said and after a meek, “No.” stumbled from Walter’s mouth the man quickly disappeared back into his house. Walter returned to his dwellings.
