Tag: Disruption

A car alarm on a feisty BMW temporarily disturbs the peace as I sip a lager at a pub a few blocks from Marble Arch, near a flat I rented the last time I lived in London. Sarah sits across from me reading a story by Helen Oyeyemi. It takes everything I possess to keep myself from throwing an ashtray through the car’s windshield. When the alarm goes off a second time, we take the hint. “Enough of this outrageous fortune,” I mutter to myself. “Time to cut and run.” But the car proves to be one of several environmental irritants encountered throughout the day. To put it plainly: things don’t go as planned. The London to which I’ve grown accustomed feels as if it’s been hijacked for the day — booby-trapped, sabotaged, reprogrammed to include pranks, gags, obstacles churned up by a trickster demiurge. “Something needs to change,” I decide. “It’s time for another dramatic alteration of consciousness. My patience is wearing thin.”