Jaza's World

Traffic Light

Trevor is obsessed with traffic lights. Some people get a kick out of abseiling, others love their stamp collections; for Trevor, nothing compares with a good set of traffic lights. He's fascinated by their precision, enraptured by their grace, and daunted by their stunning choreography. Everyone stares at the lights when they're waiting at an intersection - just like they stare at the bathroom tiles, or at the paintings in a doctor's waiting room - or at anything else to relieve their boredom. But few people stare like Trevor!

He gets a thrill of anticipation as he tracks the yellow light, while it slowly - and with a hint of reluctance - passes its energy on to the red light. He can gaze for hours on end at the green arrow, that elusive light which simply disappears, often without being followed by a yellow or a red arrow. He even feels a pang of disappointment every time he drives without halt through a green light, as he knows that an exciting experience has passed him by.

Nothing in the world offers more appeal to Trevor than traffic lights. There are a set of lights at every door in his house, all connected through a complex web of circuits, and all controlled in perfect synchronisation, by a huge machine in his basement. This machine has a woman's name - it's called 'Athena' - because in his opinion, only a goddess has the beauty, the wisdom and the delicate skill needed to control traffic lights. He's spent his entire life working on Athena, but there is always another refinement to make, always something that dissatisfies him. His spare time is devoted to oiling her gears, checking her resistors, and replacing rusty wires.

When he's walking around his house, he waits for a green light at every door. After all, he says, you never know who might be speeding down the hallway when you make your turn. He lives alone and rarely has any visitors, but this is no excuse for him. To disobey a traffic light - or even worse, to ignore one - would be a violation of his very highest principles! Visitors, on many occasions, have aggravated him by saying such things as 'How adorable! He's got a little red light on the door!', and then walking straight through it. After that happened a few times, he installed a red light camera at several intersections in his house. Ever since, he's mailed out countless fines to his inconsiderate guests, but none of them has paid.

Trevor is so unreservedly besotted with traffic lights, he just cannot function without them. This poses no problem either on the road, or in the comfort of his own home. But when he's anywhere else, he feels terribly alone and indecisive. Few can imagine the terror he endures, walking through a shopping centre, in constant danger of colliding with other people, and with no traffic lights to guide him. He has written to his local council many times, in desperation, urging them to expand the traffic light system to include all major pedestrian thoroughfares. After the first few letters, they assured him they would consider the matter at the next available opportunity. But by the fiftieth or sixtieth, they were degenerating from warnings of fines or imprisonment, to mild but not-so-subtle death threats. After that, they began returning all his mail straight back.

So in the absence of an ideal infrastructure, Trevor has had to compromise. Instead of a synchronised system, he's improvised and created a personal mobile traffic light. Its genesis relied on his inventiveness, his skill in electronics, and the purchase of a small hand-held organiser, which is attached to an even smaller motion detector. He wrote a special program to measure the level of motion off the detector, and to display either a red, yellow or green light depending on the 'traffic'. He carries this gadget wherever he goes, for without it he is incapable of deciding whether to move or to stop.

One day, as Trevor was wandering around casually inside his local shopping centre, an enormous fire broke out. Trevor, as usual, was paying close attention to his mobile traffic light, so he didn't even realise that the fire was in a shop just ahead of him. The alarm sounded deafeningly, and an unfathomable voice began babbling on the PA system. Instantly, people began to rush in every which direction, madly dashing past Trevor in their haste to get out. But amidst all the movement, Trevor was receiving a red light, and so was unable to move. He wanted to flee the building, just as everyone else did, but nothing - not even his very life - was more important than his principles. So he didn't budge.

It wasn't until everyone had left, and the fire was all around, that Trevor finally got a green light. His first instinct was to rush to the exit, but further ahead, dangerously close to the flames, he saw an old lady lying unconscious. If he didn't drag her out, she would surely die. He had two choices: either run while he still could, making it out safely; or rescue the old lady, risking his own life in the process. He looked to his organiser for guidance, but it only gave him a green light; there were no arrows to be seen.

Nothing's more important than principles, he thought to himself, so I must rescue that lady. With that, he crouched down and ran towards the fire, the intense heat blinding his eyes, and sweat cascading down his body. By the time he reached the old lady, he was squinting so hard he could barely see. He thrashed around with his arms, and somehow caught hold of her legs. He gripped them tight, and then ran towards the exit as quickly as he could, towing the precious cargo behind him. If not for Trevor's devotion to his principles, and hence to a little hand-held motion detector, that old lady would not have survived.