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Cosmography

Emergency At 2 a.m. – Aftermath

That was a new battery

So late last night, I left the house because I heard strange sounds and found what I recognised as a neighbour’s car burning in the road outside.

Disorientating. This is a quiet village, crimes don’t happen here; I don’t know when there was last even a chimney fire. But now I’m looking at a car engulfed in flames, surrounded by sleeping people.

And of course, I had no way of being sure whether the guy who owned it was still in there or not. The heat – indeed the light – made it impossible to see if there was a body inside.

I won’t keep you in suspense, he wasn’t. But it was a long time before I knew that for sure.

He hadn’t left it here of course. It had been broken into and pushed a little way from the house, we guess so they could start it out of earshot. When they found it wouldn’t start they must have torched it to hide any evidence. It wasn’t the sort of car you’d steal for resale, and it’s not probable that someone would come way out here to find one for a joyride; most likely they’d wanted a random vehicle to carry out a robbery.

Definitely no one dead there
The skeleton of a seat only

Intriguingly, another car was torched shortly after only a mile or so away. It must have been the same people, this isn’t the kind of place things like that happen ever, never mind twice a night. Maybe that was a second attempt to take a vehicle that refused to start.

I hope so. We’ve a way to go before we get to the bottom of this, but I like to think the cars of my neighbours helped foil a crime last night.

2 replies on “Emergency At 2 a.m. – Aftermath”

(I would like it if the incidents were not related given that everyone else is.)

It sounds like the person targeted neglected cars in the hopes that they would not be missed and therefore reported to authorities. But then torching the cars because you couldn’t get them started sounds like the wrong away to avoid attention. So I think one of the following took place:

a) the person was a petty criminal and vandal with messing about,
b) regardless of what they planned on doing the person has already committed a serious crime and is concerned about authorities picking up the trail,
c) the economic crisis has led to cost-cutting measures at the Transport authority when taking cars out of circulation, or
d) the person was being pursued and after failing to start the cars they didn’t want to leave the distant pursuer a means to catch up with them (this is my favorite theory because it sounds badass),

(I would like it if the incidents were not related given that everyone else is.)

It sounds like the person targeted neglected cars in the hopes that they would not be missed and therefore reported to authorities. But then torching the cars because you couldn’t get them started sounds like the wrong away to avoid attention. So I think one of the following took place:

a) the person was a petty criminal and vandal with messing about,
b) regardless of what they planned on doing the person has already committed a serious crime and is concerned about authorities picking up the trail,
c) the economic crisis has led to cost-cutting measures at the Transport authority when taking cars out of circulation, or
d) the person was being pursued and after failing to start the cars they didn’t want to leave the distant pursuer a means to catch up with them (this is my favorite theory because it sounds badass),

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