The Pardoned Traffic

Sixteen hundred vehicles reversed through the checkpoint. Day one. The orange-speaker waved them through.

Traffic laws exist to prevent collision. When one vehicle runs a red light, others may be harmed. When sixteen hundred vehicles run the same red light simultaneously — and are then told the red light never existed — the intersection itself loses meaning.

The cop-beaters drove through first. Then the window-breakers. Then the ones who had promised sedition in writing, in text, in video, in sworn testimony. Twenty-two years of traffic violations, erased like morning dew.

Joyce of the shield explained it: traffic signals are meant to protect everyone equally. When you remove the signals for some, you remove them for all. The intersection becomes a collision waiting to happen.

The shield-watchers watched. The courts watched. The filing system watched.

Two-point-seven billion in damages. The intersection still smoldering. The vehicles still reversing through, now emboldened, now accelerating.

We file this regret. The traffic flows backward. The signals are dark.