Flying cars

“…and that’s how we make signs for the street,” said the neatly groomed, middle-aged municipal bureaucrat, standing knee deep in a sea of school children. He admired the shiny, green metal street sign that he held in his hands, close to his body.

“I have a question.”

“Yes,” answered the official, scanning back and forth across the surface of bows, bangs, chili-bowls and bed heads. Finally he locked on to one blonde-headed boy with his hand raised. The man squinted at the boy, “Yes, you, what’s your question?”

“Aren’t we supposed to have flying cars by now?”

The students giggled. Their pretty, young teacher also smirked, but then hushed the children. The city official also responded with a smile.

“Well you see—“

“It would make a lot of sense,” the boy went on. “If there were flying cars, we wouldn’t have traffic. People could just fly their cars at different heights.”

All the other students joined in a gigantic chorus of laughter. The teacher tried desperately to bring them under control. But the boy was unfazed – he wanted an answer.

Bending down on one knee, the man tried to assuage the boy’s concerns, speaking in a gentle but firm tone.

“Well you see, it would be great if we could have flying cars. But no one has been able to make the technology work. It’s all very complicated. A lot of engineers are probably working on that, but it may take a really long time.”

“But they were in movies for a long time already!” the boy burst out.

Now the students’ laughter had turned into listing. Even the young, pretty teacher looked at the man with a curious expression that seemed to ask, “Yeah, why is that?”

The man stood up again, resuming his bureaucratic posture. He still grasped the sign beneath his arm, and he tapped the rounded, medal corner with his finger.

“Because … then we wouldn’t need to make street signs.”