All That Glitters

Jonas Jensen’s head fell against the steering wheel. He let out the deepest sigh imaginable, soon followed by a guttural scream of frustration. He hoisted his head backward and drummed his hands against the steering wheel, hurling abuse in a sheer expression of desperation at the standstill before him. The traffic was getting worse. Normally, the drive home took Jonas thirty minutes, but in the last month, it had doubled to exactly an hour, though it felt like two. Why the traffic had suddenly worsened, no one knew. There were no roadworks, no diversions, and it didn’t seem like there were more cars on the road. Yet, the evidence was irrefutable. Jonas arrived home sixty minutes after leaving the office.

“This is McGall’s Drive Madness, and I’m your host, Kenneth ‘the Menace’ McGall! If you want me to prank your work colleague or family member on their drive home, just send me a text. Obviously, only text when it’s safe to do so. We’re Drive Madness here, not Drive Stupidity!” Kenneth the Menace chuckled, embodying the irritating buffoon he was.

“Oh, shut up, McGall, you twat!” Jonas snarled as he turned off the radio. He despised McGall and his inane radio show, with its cheesy jingles and absurd games and pranks. Unfortunately for Jonas, the radio station that employed McGall and his equally untalented colleagues was the only station his car radio could tune into. Jonas didn’t just turn off the radio because he loathed McGall’s voice and the nonsense he spouted; he also felt mocked by McGall for being stuck in his current, stationary predicament.

Jonas slapped his hand against the steering wheel like a demented toddler, persisting far longer than he should have. When he eventually calmed down, he noticed several cars, also stuck in the same predicament, had observed his tantrum with a mix of intrigue, fascination, and slight mockery.

“Hi,” Jonas waved sheepishly. The onlookers thought no more of Jonas and returned to their phones or stared, empty-eyed, at the sea of traffic before them. Just like Jonas, they were worn down by the daily commute home.

The ironic thing about Jonas’s predicament was that the only thing waiting for him at home was a microwavable herring curry and a steamed treacle sponge pudding. There was no doting wife and children to greet his homecoming, nor even a girlfriend who didn’t really love him anymore and should have moved out years ago. All that awaited him was an empty flat with hardly any furniture and an incredibly small flat-screen TV. This begged the question: why was Jonas in such a hurry to get home? The answer was simple. Jonas loved his minimalist life and all of its trappings. It was plain and simple, with no chaos to organise or arguments to fix. Jonas Jensen liked a plain and simple life, that was until the recent delayed drives home suddenly became a chaotic and anxious part of his life that he would very much like to avoid.

The traffic showed no signs of moving, and Jonas was losing the will to live. He cursed all the traffic gods (if there were any, that was—he wasn’t quite sure but cursed them anyway) for the pain they were inflicting upon him. Not everyone else who was in exactly the same situation as himself, but Jonas believed the traffic gods were singling him out personally. Jonas didn’t know what he’d done in a previous life to offend the traffic gods, but it must have been pretty horrific. Maybe he skipped a red light and killed a waddle of penguins…

“Now that is most peculiar,” Jonas said in almost a whisper as he caught sight of a clump of purple clouds in the green-tinged sky. Yes, that’s right. Purple clouds in a green-tinged sky. Jonas most definitely knew that clouds were white and not purple, and the sky was blue (sometimes grey, but mostly blue) and certainly not green. “I’m having a stroke,” Jonas panicked. “Of all the places to have a stroke!” He braced himself for either death or severe loss of bodily functions, but nothing came. He continued to look at the purple clouds and green-tinged sky with puzzlement and weariness. “Purple clouds aren’t normal. Maybe I should ring the fire brigade. They’d know what to do…”

It then began to rain. Tiny glittering raindrops speckled Jonas’s windscreen. The tiny glittering raindrops got bigger, more colourful, and more abundant. Jonas flicked on the windscreen wipers, and as they squeaked in action, his eyebrows arched in confusion as the glittering raindrops didn’t dissipate; they just became clumps of glittering raindrops on the windscreen.

Jonas opened his car door and steadily stepped outside. The glittering raindrops fell heavier upon his head, face, and shoulders, and on the roofs and bonnets of not only his car but those stuck in the traffic jam too. The ground soon became thick and bouncy with the glittering raindrops. Mesmerised by the multitude of colours of the raindrops, Jonas crouched down and touched them. “Now that is strange,” he said. “Most strange indeed.” Jonas rubbed his thumb and index finger together, and the raindrops made his skin sparkle. He then noticed that everything around him was sparkling. It wasn’t rain falling all around him; it was glitter. “That doesn’t make sense,” he pondered. “Glitter doesn’t fall from clouds.” Not from white clouds, a voice in his head said, but from purple clouds, it’s a strong possibility.

More and more people got out of their cars and marvelled at the spectacle around them. Big smiles of joy were plastered across their faces as they embraced the unusual phenomenon. All of their anger, rage, and depression at the monotony of their lives fizzled and whirled away. Everyone danced around in the glitter shower without a care in the world. They were free. They were liberated. They were alive.

Jonas sighed and got back into his car. He slumped into his seat and folded his arms as he jealously witnessed the carnival of joyful wonderment. “I hope this isn’t going to go on much longer,” he said as he thought of the microwavable herring curry and steamed treacle sponge pudding that awaited him.