I had just stepped out of a typical suburban strip mall. I was carrying a large box in a plastic shopping bag. The box was white and covered with pictures and markings that convinced me I had just bought some kind of countertop kitchen appliance. I was waiting to be picked up by either my mother or aunt. I had agreed earlier to wait by a certain mailbox for one of them to pick me up. As I stood and waited I saw each of them drive by and take turns that led away from the shopping center. I was dissapointed by this, because it was very bright out and I was ready to go home.
Suddenly I noticed a small sort of vehicle coming up the sidewalk. It was made of green plastic and reminded me of the kinds of toy vehicles made for small children. It was clearly moving under its own power, however. Instead of typical wheels, it had spherical casters in a sort of ball-joint configuration. On the front, it was labeled “Ford iMini.” It was piloted by an orangutan. The orangutan got a little excited as his vehicle was clearly becoming out of control. With its spherical wheels free to rotate in any direction, it was up to the driver which direction the small vehicle faced. This Ford iMini was sort of travelling with its front right corner foremost. The orangutan threw up his arms and made a sort of squelching noise with his mouth as his vehicle crashed harmlessly into the mailbox post. The orangutan made a neat pratfall and rolled out of the vehicle. He continued on his way under his own power.
The iMini made a sort of humming noise for a while, then went into what I supposed was its power-saving hibernation mode. I found myself mildly disgusted by the vehicle’s futuristic pretension and totally unreasonable wheel design. I snubbed it. As I continued to wait by my post several more Ford iMinis passed by. Some of the vehicles showed slightly different designs. All had orangutans at the controls. I had to admit that the orange fur of the great apes looked smart contrasted with the toy green of the little cars.
It became clear to me that Ford had chosen the little suburban neighborhood as a testing ground for some kind of inter-species vehicle. Or perhaps they were attempting to make the vehicle so autonomous that anything with hands could drive it safely. I don’t like that sort of thing, so I decided to look further into the mystery of my purchase instead.
Opening the box, I found a large black piece of electronica. It had been so snugly fitted in its cardboard that it made a sucking sound as it slid out smoothly onto the grass. It was wrapped in thick plastic; but I could clearly determine that this was, in fact, a playstation 3. I was completely mystified. The box also yielded a small host of cords and connectors of many standards. Some I did not vaguely recognize. The last thing to come out of that mislabeled box was a gigantic joystick controller. Its base was quite literally the size of two dinner plates. It had so many buttons, many of such strange shape and movement, that I was a little bit disturbed by it.
I was completely mystified as to why I had such a thing. I had no recollection of buying it, or ever having wanted to. Despite this, I was dissapointed to find that this was the low-end version of the machine. About this time, another orangutan parked his vehicle carelessly on the grass near me. As he loped away, I failed at putting any of the pieces of the playstation back into its box; packed as it had been with perfect Japanese efficiency. I just lumped all the bits into the plastic bag and left it sitting in the hot sun. I decided to see if the Ford iMini lived up to all the fuss it was getting in the ape world.
I was pleased to find that the recently abandoned vehicle only had spherical wheels on the front. On the rear it had pneumatic tires on small traditional wheels. It also had pedals like a bicycle. Clearly this was some sort of power assisted recumbent bicycle of the future. I set it upright on the road and boarded. I started pedaling away. I found the handles awkward. They were mounted at my sides, below the seat. They were also rigidly fixed and not used for steering. I came to realize that using the pedals drove both rear wheels. The handles each had a large trigger. Pulling one of these would drive the rear wheel on that side only. The spherical front wheels allowed this input to effectively steer the vehicle. Pulling both handles drove both rear wheels electrically and gave the pedaling a significant speed boost.
As soon as I started moving along, a color display appeared in the front of the otherwise open air vehicle. It displayed my position on an animated road map. There were green icons moving about the map. I came to realize that these were other Ford iMinis and that they were all networked in some way. Was this a crash-avoidance concept from Ford? I was just getting the hang of the strange steering method of my vehicle when it suddenly spoke to me. An insistent woman’s voice alerted me, “Attention, a large truck is approaching from the rear.” Without my command, the iMini started veering into the gutter. I tried to keep it straight, I could see that I was not far from a place to enter the sidewalk. The iMini continued its message of safety and overrided my attempts to steer. I glanced over my shoulder and could see that the street was completely empty behind me for several blocks. I was suddenly much less interested in it. Like the orangutans who had gone before me, my relationship with the Ford iMini was becoming much less enjoyable. As the iMini continued its nonsensical safety campaign by grinding into the curb, I took the opportunity to roll out of it. At this point, I awoke.
Dream of Toby Lunn, 7 May 2007.
