A small act of rebellion? Or the start of something much, much bigger?
I live on a relatively quiet little side-street, in Auckland’s inner-city-adjacent area. It is a suburb of villas, which means it is also a suburb where off-street parking is at a premium. In fact, if you want to park your car on our street, you need to fork out an annual parking fee. To paraphrase the Beastie Boys: “you have to pay, for your right, to pa-a-a-a-a-rking!”
A few weeks back my block, on my street, awoke to find that a proliferation of cones had appeared overnight. Both sides were cordoned off by a phalanx of those ubiquitous orange sentinels, imposing their will upon where we could and couldn’t park. They were backed up with signs decreeing ‘ROAD WORKS’ and driving home the point with declarations of ‘NO PARKING’.
Normally, when this sort of thing happens, you are woken in the middle of the night by flashing lights and clanking sounds, as people clad in Hi-Viz take the cones from the trucks and distribute them across the whenua. Not this time. It was as if the cones had magically materialized, in the still of an Auckland winter’s night.
And nobody knew why. There had been no clues beforehand, such as a maildrop in the letterbox announcing whoever it was would be doing whatever they needed to do, at some point whenever. It was a total mystery as to why the cones had suddenly appeared.
The last time our block had been cordoned off in such a fashion it was pretty obvious why, as a sinkhole big enough to drive a Mini into had opened up at the bottom of the street, thanks to inner-city Auckland’s dodgy underground plumbing system. Our block was blocked off for months while they patched it all up. It was actually nice and quiet, being in a Residents Only zone for a bit. The only real pain was having to schlep the rubbish and recycling bins up the hill for collection.
This time, however, there were no visual clues as to why the road needed working upon. Not even a pothole of inordinate size.
And then nothing happened.
And the nothing kept on happening for a few weeks. The cones and signs did their thing, but that was it. Nada. No humans in Hi-Viz, standing in groups, looking at the road as if was going to tell them what it needed them to do.
Then the small acts of rebellion began. A car, parked in front of a no parking sign, the cones shifted onto the berm.
Then another car. Then another car.
It took about a week before all the cones were beside the road, guarding the cars which were parked (as per usual) in front of the signs telling them not to park there. This became the status quo for a while.
Then, not long ago, the street awoke to find that the cones and the signs had vanished. Again, no-one heard or saw a thing. There at bedtime; gone by breakfast.
I have written, before, in Hey, Writer Guy of my belief that the many cones that infest Auckland’s roads are actually sentient beings, driven by some mysterious force which we simply cannot understand. I have even pitched a TV series idea about them to a TVNZ commissioner, over drinks at a flash TV event. Yes, they backed away from the crazy person at the time, but what if I’m not crazy? What if I’m right to be paranoid about the cones?
Recent events in my street have certainly given credence to my theories, so call them crackpot at your peril. Especially when, not long after the strange appearance/disappearance of the cones, and just as I was thinking about writing this piece, a lone cone turned up, on the footpath, outside my front gate.
Whereas the other cones had been pristine in their orangeness, this one was kind of battered and scarred. And as you can see from the photo, furtively snapped as I pretended to see if there was any mail even though we only ever get mail from real estate agents, it was clearly trying to blend in with the foliage. Try as it might to master the art of camouflage even I could tell this was a spy cone. Also orange is a shit colour for camouflage unless you are trying to hide among the oranges at the supermarket or amongst Dutch football supporters.
But maybe the complete failure to blend into the surroundings was deliberate. Maybe they wanted me to know that they knew I was onto them. Now I knew that they knew that I knew.
Then they sent me a sign.
Literally, a sign turned up, in the gutter, the other side of the foliage behind the cone, right outside my house. It was one of those tin signs they put up temporarily when they’re fixing the road or whatever other insidious things they do.
The sign was leaning up against the foliage. The grey, blank back of the side was facing me. So I had to turn it over to read the message they were sending.
The thing is that my house is nowhere near a school zone. The nearest school is 800 metres away. It was clear that they were telling me that the lessons are over and if we haven’t learnt them by now, then too bad. Time is up. The cones are coming for us. The school zone has come to an end.
I would have taken a photo of the actual sign but by the time I had analysed what I’d seen and garnered the courage to go back outside, the sign was no longer there. Vanished into thin air. Or maybe taken away on the back of a truck. Either way, the message had got through and now the message was gone.
I won’t say I told you so. I won’t say you should have listened when you had the chance. I won’t say what is coming, because I have no idea what goes on the minds of those carrot-coloured teepees.
But I will say you heard it here first.