Speed cameras: Roadside somewhere in Co Meath. Lone speed camera box stands in the dusk, flashes intermittently. It expels a series of deep, weary sighs before breaking into a short tuneless burst of a ditty from Beckett's Krapp's Last Tape.
"Now the day is over, Night is drawing nigh-igh, Shadows of the evening, Steal across the sky. . ."
Erhhhghgh. Another day over. What joy. Huh. As if. Miserable existence, mine. Perched here atop a metal pole, click clickety click. Day after day, same old same old. Dawn to dusk, snapping - or pretending to snap - guttersnipes tearing past in cars. Why? Does it stop them? No. Are there less of them whizzing past? No. Arggh. Why bother?
Night beckons. Might as well turn in. My work here is done. Put the flash on auto. Just to scare them. They don't know I can't see them when the sun goes down. That's right. I go blind at dusk. Imagine that? Me, a speed camera, and I can't see anything when most of my intended targets are most likely to be doing exactly what I'm supposed to catch them doing?
Each time I hear of someone killed in a crash, I wince in shame, wonder if the driver responsible had once sped past me in the dark and I'd missed him. If I'd been able to see, maybe he'd have been put off the road, maybe the crash would never have happened. Maybe. I wonder how they can sleep at night in Garda HQ, knowing that they sent me out here to do a job I couldn't do.
(What other shockers are they hiding? That all their handcuffs are made of cheese? That squad cars run on vintage champagne? That they are all three foot two and wear stilts under their blue serge slacks?)
Not that it really matters. Even if I could see in the dark, they don't bother putting film in me most of the time. And when they do, half the time they forget me, leaving me perched here, my precious records rotting, ruined.
It's not my fault. But still. I feel guilty. Ashamed. But I must go on. I'll go on. They say they're going to deal with the problem. Replace me with a new fangled yoke that can see through plate steel from 400 yards. Piffle. Bound to be just as inadequate. I'll be done with, retired. Stuck on a shelf to gather dust. Think I'd like that.
Today was one of the better days At least I actually have a tape in me, spooling away. Box threee, spoool five Spoooolll. Ha. In my position, you have to love a bit of Beckett. I often fancy he'd have done a great number on me. What better example of the futility of existence is there than me?
That said, I think I got a few decent shots this evening. The guy who went past in the battered Corolla a few minutes ago will be getting a nasty shock in the post a few months from now. What's that? Who's there? I can't see, you see. Who? Have you come to take the film away? In a manner of speaking? I don't understand
Did I get a picture of what? A Corolla? I did indeed. Funny that, I was just talking about it. Why? Holy merciful hour, that's harsh. The last person I heard using language like that was coming at me with an angle-grinder. You wish you had an angle-grinder? Huh, at this stage, I almost do too.
What are you at? Is that petrol I smell? I was only messing about the angle-grinder, honest. Look, don't worry about the photo - the film'll be long perished by the time they get to me. It'll look more like the Turin Shroud than the back of your car, I swear.
Achh. What to do but stand and take it. Do your worst. Maybe it's for the best. Perhaps, like Krapp, my best years are gone. Like him, I wouldn't want them back. Not with the fire in me now.
Curtains.
