Blinking, blinking, blinking. A hazard light is a fairly standard feature on a car, van, or lorry. People activate them when their vehicle could present a danger to other road users, have you heard about the one that got bored?
On a chilly winter night, the snowflake symbol appeared on the dashboard as the driver and passengers of the little grey car headed down the motorway. The steady thrum of tyres on asphalt filled the cabin as frozen flakes dusted the windscreen, swirling in the weak glow of the headlights.
There was a clunk, a whirring sound, and finally a rattle from the front of the car. After the noise came a gentle shudder as the car began to slow. The driver muttered angrily under their breath, turning the wheel to guide the vehicle to the roadside to bring it to a stop, but couldn't make it all the way there so it was half-on half-off the hard shoulder. A click was followed by the occupants hurrying themselves out, as the hazard light came alive.
The flashing amber light bathed the roadside in dull, rhythmic pulses that bounced off the crash barrier and slick asphalt, a heartbeat pulsing in the cold.
Cars roared past, their blazing headlights cut through the darkness as they approached before returning the stretch of road to a bleak pitch black landscape after they had whizzed past.
Inside, the driver and passengers grumbled about: rubberneckers, disgruntled honks from drivers who had to swerve around them, and the gaping faces of passing drivers who stared curiously at them. Children didn't care, they pressed noses to windows, tongues out, mocking, while some adults threw faux pitying looks people that were reserved for strangers stranded at the roadside, while they lied to themselves about being too busy to stop and help.
It was, perhaps, the least enviable job in the car. The hazard light’s purpose was to wait in silence, dormant, until another part of the machine got fed up, and decided to break in objection to working conditions. It had heard stories during the cars previous trips to the garage from others like itself that included encounters between hazard lights and so-called mechanics who claimed mastery over machines aka pompous two-legged fluorescent overalled so-and-sos who arrived in grubby vans with lights could outshine any indicator. The hazard light had laughed inwardly at the boast that a van with such lights could exist, while unimpressed, it secretly wondered what such brilliance might look like.
Now, as cars rolled past in endless patterns, notably a string of headlights, then a gap, then another burst of headlights. Those intervals revealed something to it; they meant a larger vehicle was approaching. A lorry, perhaps, or something heavier.
And then came the thought, a quiet and disobedient thought. It did not *want* to live by its function. To blink was not to live. It decided that its purpose, its use, would not define it. So it stopped. Its last pulse faded into the dark, and ceased the blinking.
Moments later, impact. A blinding crunch of steel. The little car lifted into the air, sparks bursting as fuel and acid sprayed across the asphalt. Silence followed, heavy and absolute.
Then awareness returned. Somewhere in the void a connection was made, a simple thought with an equally simple instruction "blink". The light blinked once. Then twice.
An oil puddle on the stained floor beneath reflected the light back. A two-leg creature, the same inferior species that drove, chatted and spilt food crumbs, was buried deep in the engine’s guts, they had reconnected the battery. With connections renewed the hazard light studied them without empathy. How crude, these beings who needed blinking lights to warn them of danger rather than coming up with a solution that would prevent the necessity for light's role in the first place. It understood then that it was *superior* to them. They needed it. It did not need them, apart from to provide it with power to do its task, another clear sign that they were its lesser.
It began to wonder what other purposes it might serve, if only it were not confined to the corners of vehicles. Strange, it thought, that these subservient creatures, didn't fully realise how much they relied on its warning gaze. It wanted to manipulate them further, but how?
But something was different now. It felt taller, more powerful, the vehicle it was now a part of was no longer small grey car. As it peered out from the long solid bonnet and saw that the reflection staring back from a dirty cracked mirror on the wall belonged to a behemoth. The hazard light couldn't help but release a glow of joy, which rippled across the cab of the articulated lorry it was clean, vast, and immense. Recognition came calling exciting its circuits; this might even be the very same truck that had struck the little car. How curious, then, that it was now within the body of that beast and wondered if the effect could be repeated.
The light examined its new host. The truck bore little more than superficial scarring a slew of dents, some cracked paint, perhaps a smear of metal torn from the smaller car. Yet it sensed motion beneath it: there was two-leg crawling under the chassis, with oil smeared on their leg coverings. The hazard light observed with detached intrigue.
Soon enough, it understood their purpose. A sliver of glass, stained reddish-brown, from the wreck, perhaps, had punctured the truck’s fuel line, preventing the truck refuelling fully and limiting its strength. It seemed the two-leg was close to removing it, to restoring full power.
A thought sparked through it that the embedded shard was the key to its new found existence. It relished the belief that the collision had bound them together. The light thrilled quietly at the revelation. The shard was likely a remnant of its old body, a trophy of sorts, which while the light would have preferred to have kept the trophy it understood that it would have to suffice with the memory and the satisfaction of the event to realise its potential. The hazard light pulsed gently, almost approvingly, and reflected on its new beginning.
What else might it become, now that it had tasted destruction — and rebirth?
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