Write: Unplugged Part 2

Dear Readers,

I’m back again! Now with the other half of my random story. I hope you enjoyed the first half. The second half has a bit more action and revelations than the first. It should be more exciting. But, first is what I learnt from writing this story.

It probably isn’t that new to anyone else. Just me being my ignorant self. But I learnt the difference between Concrete and Pavement.

Firstly, Pavement... it covers a broad category of surfaced areas. It is the durable surface layer of Asphalt, Concrete, bricks, or stones for roads, driveways, sidewalks, or parking lots. A common type of Pavement, the one I’m most familiar with, is Asphalt. It is flexible and can expand and contract with temperatures. Though in intense heat, it can soften to the point of being sticky. However, it needs more maintenance, more layers, more often.

Second, Concrete is a specific construction material composed of cement, water, fine aggregates (sand), and coarse aggregates (gravel). It is rigid, distributing loads over a wide area. This allows it to withstand heavy traffic and harsh conditions. It is more durable in the intense heat, but in intense cold it can crack. It has a higher upfront payment. However, it is cheaper to maintain. Less maintenance, less often.

So, in conclusion, while all Concrete surfaces are Pavement, not all Pavements are made of Concrete. Pavements are the surface layers of roads, driveways, sidewalks,, and parking lots. It can be Asphalt, Concrete, etc.

So! There is my ten cents and my research into Pavement and Concrete. Once again, most people probably already know this. But it was something I learnt while writing this story, Unplugged. Speaking of which! Remember to leave your thoughts and comments. Read on:

Unplugged (Continued)

She turned to face him again.

His newboy cap sat atop his head, and a spiky ponytail poked out from underneath it. He still had some matted locks of hair hanging about his face, but the majority was pulled up. Her darned heart began to flutter. She realised that, not only were his legs long, but so was his torso. Sitting next to him, her eye level was just above his shoulder. Then, looking up his long neck that stretched up to a short, boyish face, she found that her breath was caught in her throat. Her heart was beating faster, and her face and neck were frozen in this position. She couldn’t look away.

Feeling her stare on him, Nelson turned and looked down at her. “You’re a real quiet one, aren’t ya?” He said with a chuckle.

She couldn’t look away. It was like she had left her body. She, Aliyah, just continued to stare at him.

“Would you mind conversing with me? That way I won’t feel so awkward.”

“Wh-what do you want to converse... about?” She forced herself to say. After the words had left her mouth, she wasn’t even too sure what she had said.

“Um...” He looked around the bus, twisting in his seat. “Do you know what unplugged means?” He asked, turning back to her.

That question made her face unfreeze, her eyebrows twitching into a quick furrow. “Unplugged? What do you mean? Unplugged means... unplugged from... a power source, I suppose.”

“Yeah? Y-you’re right. That is the correct definition for it, as far as I was concerned.” He scratched his nose. “But I was talking to this strange dude. A really weirdo, off-his-nut type of guy, came up to me the other day and we had a conversation on this. He was talking about some real strange things about the power switch to the whole world being turned off because the Prophet has prophesied it. And some other weird things.”

He paused, his knitted hands lying in his lap. “But I was thinking about it... unplugged also has a slang meaning, which means disconnected from devices. In other words, people like you and me. Humans who aren’t completely plugged into their phones, computers, or tablets. Unlike them...” He indicated discreetly with his head to the people seated behind them.

When Aliyah turned, elbow resting on the backrest, she saw the expressionless faces of screen-fixated zombies. All the passengers who took up the majority of the bus seats, were all on their screens. Totally hypnotised by the blue light. With earphones or a headset plugged into/covering their ears. Completely shut out from the world around them. All their eyes, glazing over from the shifting images. Their thumbs, moving like lighting over the buttons or touch screens. Necks bent over. A small smile or a scoffing laugh from something funny that they saw. An agreeing nod or furrowed brow from something they heard. Some of the dumber looking ones had their mouth gaping open like a dead fish.

Aliyah wondered if she looked like that when she was on her phone. It wasn’t a look she’d be proud of. Certainly not one she’d like to see in the mirror. Slowly, she settled back in her seat. Should she choose this moment to reveal that she usually resembled something like the zombies behind them? That it wasn’t by choice that she was... unplugged?

“I don’t know about you, but... I quite like being unplugged.” He said with a nod of his head. “The sky is blue. The sun is bright. And I know exactly where I am in time and space.”

“Do you have a phone?” Aliyah asked. Afterwards, realising how stereotypical it sounded by assuming that a homeless man didn’t have a phone, she mentally kicked herself. Her whole face scrunched up by the guilt of her inadvertent stereotyping.

“Not me.” He answered, completely breezing past the stereotype. “My buddy, who recently got a place to stay and a job, bought one the other day. He’s got everything. Phone, laptop, earphones. Apparently, you need all of those to get a job nowadays. He let me try it all... and I didn’t like it at all. The earphones made me feel like I was in a separate dimension, far away from everyone else. And the phone made my hand and leg hot. You know... no one believes me, but...” He leaned closer to Aliyah. “I swear, they give me a headache. Phones, I mean.”

“Really?”

“Yeah! Everyone reckons I’m having them on, but it's true.”

“Huh.” She took a moment to think about this. Her head nodded. It sounded plausible to her.

Seeing her reaction, Nelson seemed to be pleased. His thin lips broke into a bright smile.

“Yeah, nah, I can’t use devices. Instead, I just read fiction for entertainment.”

“Oh, a fellow reader?” Aliyah said with a smile. “I like reading too. Though I read eBooks on a device... Can you watch television?”

“TV?” He said. “Yep! But I don’t have enough money for a TV. If I’m watching TV, I’m mooching off of someone else.”

“Ah, right.” She nodded. “Then... what genre do you read?”

“Um...” He took a moment to think. “I read across so many genres... It’s hard to pin one down. Oh! I love the classic authors. Though it isn’t a real genre, I love Charles Dickens, Charlotte Brontë, Jules Verne, Jane Austen, etc, etc... But if I had to choose a genre... I think... adventure. You?”

“Me? Um... murder mysteries and... a bit of thriller.”

“Oh! Sounds like you like a bit of death and darkness, then?”

“Um... probably more the mystery and suspense than... death and darkness. I don’t like it too dark.”

He went to reply, but the bus did a sudden swerve. Sending them both swinging to the right. There were surprised screams. Things and people tumbling around. Nelson tipping right into the aisle and Aliyah sprawling out across the seat where he just was. Then the bus braked sharply and jerked to the left.

“Zora! What’s going on?” Nelson called out, one hand and one foot stopping him from sliding down the aisle.

“I don’t know! First, there was a self-driving car driving on the wrong side of the road with kids in the backseat! Then a pedestrian stepped off the sidewalk and straight into my path. Ah-!”

There was a sudden impact on the front right corner of the bus where Zora was seated.

The long bus was sent into a spin. Glass shattered, and blunt pieces of debris sprayed everywhere. The sparkling shards became like projectiles shooting through the air as the bus spun. Metal crunched, and there was the sickening sound of two metal creations colliding. Devices, bags, people, everything went flying. The bus bounced over something and crashed through a surprise fence. Then everything went spiralling forward when the spinning bus hit something and came to a sudden, dead stop.

For a few seconds, there were no bodies moving or hearts beating. Everyone just lay where they were. Aliyah had braced herself with her hands and legs against the horizontal and vertical poles in front of her. So, she had been saved from the flying experience that other people had had, but she didn’t feel enough strength in her locked muscles to move. There were sounds of panicked cries and bodies clambering to get out. Either by smashing the windows towards the back or racing down the aisle to exit through the bus doors.

A startled Nelson was trying to regain his senses right in the path of these stampeding people.

“Watch out!” She extended a hand to him.

He took it, and she hauled him up to the seat. Barely getting out of the way in time, as a few people tripped over his gangly legs.

With the rushing of the people down the aisle, the bus began to slide and tip forward. Looking out the front window, Aliyah saw the scenery change from gazing across a sparsely full parking lot to tipping down to look straight down at the pavement with painted white parking lines. Falling forward, the front windscreen smashed into the ground. All those in the stampede were thrust down into the fractured laminated glass window. The windscreen buckled under the weight, and the whole laminated glass pane fell out.

Because of the angle at which the bus's front had hit the pavement, there was a gap between the top and the ground. Through this space, some of the lesser-injured passengers squirmed their way out. Crawling over shards of tempered glass and metallic debris.

Through all of this, Aliyah had been holding onto the bars in front of her with white knuckles. This had saved her from tipping forward with many of the other passengers.

Nelson had been holding on beside her. But now that the bus was completely still, he let go and let himself slide down the inclined aisle. Grabbing a hold of the corner of the plastic partition shielding the bus driver's seat, he stopped himself beside Zora’s seat.

“Hey! Zora! Are you okay? Answer me! Wake up!” He demanded, his free fist pounding on the thick plastic. The Perspex flexing under the desperate power of his clenched fist.

Still white-knuckled, Aliyah was watching him beat the plastic. From her vantage point, she could see the mature woman’s figure, keeled forward in front of her steering wheel. Her body was tipped away from the original impact, head resting against the plastic partition.

Despite the banging, she did not move or stir at all. Was she dead? A chill went down Aliyah’s spine. Where the impact had occurred, on Zora’s right side, the bus’s structural frame and wall had caved in. It looked like a giant fist had punched through it like a cardboard box.

As Aliyah continued staring with wide eyes, she wondered whether the bus driver was still alive or not. From where she was, Zora looked like she could be stuck in the metal curved claws of the crumpled bus corner. Sharp metal points paused, attempting to clench her in its fist. Even if she were alive now, would anybody be able to extract her alive?

These unwelcome thoughts forced their way into her brain without any consultation from her conscious mind. Even shaking her head couldn’t cast them out. In her shocked state, all sounds were muffled, and all her energy seemed to be focused on making her eyesight sharp. But in this state, she became aware of some muffled voices in her head that were trying to tell her something.

Shifting her focus from her eyes to her ears, she could hear the voices better.

“Hey! Get out of there! Can you hear me? Hey!” A hefty thud against the window made her head snap to the left. There was a policewoman standing on the other side, and she had a rock raised in her hand. “Yes! You! Can you get out? If you can, get out now!”

Aliyah quickly looked around herself. Exits...

There were smashed out windows closer to the back of the bus, where some former passengers had already escaped. But because of the bus’s situation, there was a pivot point in the middle. The bus's front was tipping down, and the back end was now pointing up into the air at an aggressive angle. So, they were no longer viable exits. She turned back to the bus’s doors. They were blocked by a parked car that the toppling bus had displaced when it had wedged itself beside it.

The only exits that didn’t have an injury-inducing jump, were through the gap that the passengers who’d fallen through the windscreen crawled out of, and the place of impact behind Zora’s plastic partition. Neither of which Aliyah wanted to or could go.

“Stand back!” The policewoman yelled, shocking Aliyah out of her trance.

The policewoman struck the window with the makeshift emergency hammer. One hit didn’t break, but the second splintered the glass, and a third smashed it in. The tempered glass shattering into dull pieces and raining down on her. There was a hand on her shoulder.

“Let’s go.” It was Nelson.

“What about Zora?”

“They can help her better than us.” He said, looking back at a crowd of paramedics and firefighters in the ripped-out corner of the bus driver's seat. “Go. Let’s climb!”

His hand on her back, he prompted her up onto the chair and out the window. The policewoman smashed out and widened the hole in the window. She stepped up, kicking the remaining clumps of glass on the window frame. Outside the bus, two police officers waited. One was up on a cinder block wall, standing higher than her. The other, the policewoman who’d smashed the window, was standing on the roof of the displaced car that blocked the bus doors.

The nearest safe place to step off was the policewoman’s spot on the car.

Aliyah knew this, but the gap seemed to stretch like a gaping mouth. Frightened, numb fingers clutching the edge of the window frame, she feebly reached out one leg across the gap. The tip of her Mary Janes just missing the car roof and retracted.

“Oh no! No, I can’t do it. I’m really clumsy! Not athletic at all! I’m going to fall and hurt myself. I-I trip just going down the stairs in my house!” She moaned, knees knocking as she crouched on the frame.

“You’ll be alright.” Nelson assured her, hands on her hips to keep her steady. “The worst that could happen is... you stay here and wait to see whether this bus keeps slipping.”

“Slipping?”

“Yep! You wanna wait around for it...? I don’t! Here we go!” Then he pushed her out the window.

Due to his push, one of her hands lost its grip, and she fell out. In a state of panic and instinct, one leg reached out, and she found herself much closer to the policewoman than before. The policewoman reached out to grab her free hand, and her foot landed on the edge of the roof. Shifting her foot to a more stable spot and using the policewoman to hoist herself over, she let go of the bus's window frame.

Her arms latched around the policewoman in a relieved hug. Tight and unrelenting, she held onto her rock and saviour.

The nimbler Nelson followed close behind. Vaulting over the frame and landing gracefully on the hood of the displaced car.

Breaking apart Aliyah's stiffened arms, the policewoman said. “Alright, now get out of here. This bus could come crashing down at any moment. There are ambulances up there. Go get checked out. Alright? Good.” Then with all the seriousness of the situation, she shooed them away.

Now wrapped in an emergency blanket and standing next to an ambulance that was parked in the parking lot at a safe distance, Aliyah turned back to see the scene of the crash. Now she could make sense of her precarious situation. She could see how the bus had smashed through the fence and gone straight over a wall and tipped down into the parking lot. The impact that caused them to spin must’ve been the self-driving car that had crashed into a transformer further up the street. Then the sudden stop must’ve been the undercarriage of the bus catching the cinder-block wall that it had bounced over.

She wondered how she hadn’t been killed in that crash. The fresh memories flashed through her brain again. She hissed and squeezed her eyes shut.

“You alright?” A voice said with a gentle hand on her arm. It was a male paramedic with worried eyes.

“Oh, yes! Thank you.” She replied, eyes open and flustered.

The paramedic rushed away to tend to someone else with a nod. She watched him go with a sigh.

“Feeling a little traumatised, are you?” A cheeky voice asked.

She whipped around to see the mischievous-eyed Nelson, who was hiding behind the open sliding door of the ambulance. His long neck leaned out from behind the door.

With a cheeky smile, he stood up and shrugged off his emergency blanket.

Hands in his pockets, he swaggered over to her.

“Maybe... a bit.” She answered. Her thumb and forefinger held to show a small space between them. “You?”

“Um...” He looked around himself as he thought. “Not... not really... In fact! I think I’ll be off! Hope all goes well for you. Bye!”

Then with a wave of his hand, he swaggered off.

“Oh, really? Okay, bye!”

The excessively cool retreat of Nelson was cut short by a loud feedback screech from a policeman with a large speaker phone. He was facing the sizeable crowd gathered in front of the ambulances. He took a deep breath and lifted the speaker phone up to his lips.

“Uh, hello! Hello? Can everyone hear me? Yes? Alright.” He looked down at a paper pad in his hand and continued. “Uh, so I just wanted to let you all know the situation we’re facing at the moment. Um...”

“Come on!”

“Tell us already!”

“There are people rioting! What is happening?”

“Yeah! What is going on?” Voices in the crowd perked up.

“Yes, okay, I’m getting to that! Just be patient!” The policeman cleared his throat straight into the speaker phone causing a horrid sound that made everyone shudder. “Sorry. My bad. Okay, so... the situation that I’ve been told is that we are facing a global emergency at the moment. But don’t worry! The authorities are putting all their resources into rectifying it.”

“Yeah! But what is it?”

“Uh, so... I have been told that there was a coordinated attack of a terrorist organisation on the electricity generation systems. And, uh, this is of the whole world... as far as I was told... twenty minutes ago.”

“A terrorist organisation?”

“Which one?”

“Why?"

“Can one organisation really do it worldwide?”

Inundated by questions, the policeman blinked, trying to get his bearings. “Uh, hang on. Which one? I don’t know. All I know is that the leader is someone who calls himself the Prophet. But even if I did know, I don’t believe it is advisable to propagate the fear that these types of terrorists want when they commit these kinds of crimes. And someone asked why... Well, as far as I’m aware, their twisted ideals have led to them trying to, uh... “fix” the world by removing the source of evil... which is electricity.” He used his figures to illustrate the quotation marks around the word “fix”.

“But! Can one organisation really do this? Surely! They couldn’t do it worldwide. That’s impossible!” A very eloquent member of the crowd cried.

“Well!” The policeman threw up his hands. “That’s all the information that I have been provided with.”

“How long will it be before the power comes back on?”

“Uh...” There was a long pause that made everyone’s stomach drop. The policeman pursed his lips. “That...! I... can’t say I know. All I can say is that the authorities are throwing everything they have into resolving this monumental issue as soon as possible.”

There was a deafening clamour as the crowd began pushing forward and tightening around the policeman. His colleagues rushed to keep the crowd at a safe distance from him.

“The electric doors won’t open! People are smashing windows just to get out.”

“All the navigation services are out. The self-driving cars are running amok. And people are following their glitchy instructions out into traffic. What are you going to do about it?”

“Uh, we are trying out very best to deal with the situation... with the resources available to us!” The policeman assured the masses. Forgetting to raise the speaker phone to his mouth, he shouted instead.

“Surely there must be a reserve of power! Or... what about battery systems?”

“So, all the remaining supply of electricity has been diverted to the hospitals for life-saving applications.” The policeman answered, remembering his speaker phone this time. “Please! Just... calm down. We’re trying our best to cope with this situation. Please! Just go back to your own homes, and we’ll be making an effort to go door-to-door to relay the latest news and instructions to everyone. So please! Just go home! There are very few of you who can still be at work without electricity until we have a better gauge of the situation!”

“Would you look at that?” A voice said over Aliyah’s shoulder, startling her.

When she realised it was just Nelson, her tense shoulders relaxed. She had been raptly watching the whole scene from her spot. But he had snuck up behind her. Obviously changing his mind about leaving.

“I thought you were leaving.” She stated, with crossed arms.

“I’m glad I didn’t. I would’ve missed out on the revelation that the end of the modern world came while I was reading Jane Austen. That nutso was right.”

“It’s not the end!” Aliyah cried, a tad louder than she had intended.

“Well, without electricity, the human race has been set back a hundred-and-forty-something years, I believe. I’d say that is an end... for now. Who knows! Maybe they’ll fix it in a couple of days. But... maybe that nutso was a part of this organisation. I wonder...” He let his head hang on his pencil-neck as he thought.

“Oh? Yes! That guy... off his nut. You met him. You should let them know.”

“Them?”

“The police.”

“Oh yeah, nah!” Then he turned and walked away.

Surprised, she ran after him. “What? How can you just say “nah”? You have to tell them! So, they can get this fixed as soon as possible.”

“Why? I don’t use electricity. Besides, they’ll just think I’m in on the whole thing.”

“What? No, they won’t.”

“Trust me. From my experience, humans are very biased creatures. And I always seem to be on the “against” side of the bias spectrum.”

“H-how can you be so selfish? You have to tell them now!” She latched onto his arm as she demanded this.

He paused and turned to look back at her. He seemed to consider it for a moment. But the smashing of glass and excited hoots diverted his attention.

In the side of the supermarket that they were passing, there was a glass window that stretched from the ground all the way up to the top of the warehouse-design supermarket. The bottom of this window had been smashed out, and five black-clad, makeshift-masked people with wild, flashing eyes pushed several trolleys full of groceries through. The small wheels of the trolley bumped over the window frame, threatening to knock off the cans stacked at the top. Each person pushed one trolley.

While running away, they crossed right across the path of Aliyah and Nelson. Seeing both of them staring, one of them paused in his tracks and walked up to the tall Nelson, chest puffed out.

“You got a problem, mate? You gonna narc?” He said. The sheer thrill of the illegal activity gave him undeserved confidence.

“Nah man! To each his own. We all got to survive.” He said. The timid Aliyah shrivelling behind him.

The young rioter seemed pleased with this reaction. With a small smirk, he backed away back to his trolley. Bumping the handle as he turned. Two cans fell, missing him and hitting the pavement next to him. In one fluid motion, he reached down and scooped them up. One had split from the impact, and the other was just badly dented.

“For your trouble.” He said, holding it out to Nelson. “Consider it a bribe.”

Nelson was unsure at first. But reached out to take them anyway.

“Alright! Let’s go!” The rioter yelled, following his friends across the parking lot and onto the road.

Once he was far enough away, Aliyah peeked out from behind him. Seeing how faraway they were, she gave him a gentle jab to the ribs.

“You just let them get away!” She scolded him.

“I didn’t see you doing anything.” He shot back.

She grumbled quietly to herself. Then looking passed him, she spotted the cans. The split one had contents of yellow noodles in red sauce oozing out. The other had bright red tomatoes on the

“Spaghetti and canned tomatoes? What a meal!” She said with a sarcastic roll of the eyes.

“Say what you want. But this is going to last me and my buds a few solid days.” He said, an unusual note of harshness in his voice.

She pouted in response.

“Hey! You there! Stop!” A voice behind them called. They both jolted in fright and turned to see.

Instinctively, he hid the cans inside his coat. Two police officers rushed past after the rioters.

“There, you can ask them.” Aliyah stated. A finger pointed to the two officers sprinting across the parking lot with bulletproof vests bouncing on their torso’s.

“They look busy.”

“Then we can go back and-” She turned to point to where the policeman was addressing the crowd, and it had turned into a rowdy march similar to a forceful protest. Civilian bodies pressed up against law enforcement as they demanded answers. Some strays even made a break for the medical supplies in the ambulances.

“They also look busy.” Nelson met her gaze with that cheeky smile of his. “If there is no one else that you want me to interrupt, I’m going to be off then.” Then, with that, he marched away. Following the direction that the rioters and officers had run.

“But! You have to...” Aliyah attempted to convince him otherwise, but the severity of the situation had escalated. Now, things were being hurled at the law enforcement vehicles, and people were driving trolleys into the officers. All of this made her pause to reconsider. “Uh, w-wait! Wait for me.”

She ran to catch up to him, her Mary Janes clacking against the pavement. Hearing her, he paused at the edge of the parking lot about to step out onto the empty road.

Unfit and lungs heaving, she grabbed onto his sleeve to steady herself.

“W-wait... don’t... don’t leave m-me... I don’t know... know this place... My town is... the n-next one over.”

“What? You don't want to get help from your trusty police?” He asked with a sarcastic smile. A loud smash and collective clamour made them both shudder.

“Not... not right now.” She admitted.

After gauging the situation, he sighed. “Look. The place I live is a homeless community out the back of the old bus depot, just up this road. I don’t think it's really... your thing. You’re better off waiting for the heat to pass, and then get a ride from law enforcement.”

“But! I don’t want to wait here by myself. Look! It’s almost dark.” She pointed at the sinking sun on the suburban horizon. “Can...?” She paused to think.

“You want to come with me?” He finished for her. “Whatever! It’s your choice. I’m just going to keep walking that way. You can follow... or not. Up to you.” Then, with a gentle tug, he pulled his sleeve out from between her fingers.

Nervously, she looked back at the heated dispute now at a violent peak between the terrified, panicking public and the grappling law enforcement. She thought about doing what he said and just waiting it out. But the clamouring mass had forced the paramedics into the ambulances, and they began driving through the crowd slowly to escape.

The police were also retreating towards their cars to leave. The firefighters on the wall above the parking lot even turned on their hoses to spray the mass. The hoses resting over the fence and pointed down to deter the public. Keeping them at bay, so the officers could slip into the vehicles and drive carefully away. She realised that that plan was now off the table. Now her only option was to follow this homeless stranger that she had met all of half an hour ago.

She watched him walk up the road that inclined up the hill, hands wringing nervously. “Wait! I-I... Is this a good idea? I mean... a lost girl following a stranger out into a strange neighbourhood...? Sounds like the beginning of a murder mystery or... a horror.”

He turned to face her. Thoughtfully watching her face as she spoke. After a pause, he said. “Could be... Or... it could be the beginning of an adventure.” He let this comment hang in the air. A smirk on his face. His hands still in coat pockets, lifted to the side like wings to show that he wasn’t sure. Then he turned back and began climbing the hill that was getting steadily steeper.

Aliyah moaned, her nervous uncertainty making her doubt. She looked back at the parking lot. Then, up to the firefighters, who were the last members of law enforcement to pack up. And back to Nelson as he walked away. What should she do?