TE17 Mysterious Montenegro

had to; having noted that cars on roads would ultimately become roads for cars, it was ironic then that one of the buildings he hurried past was devoted to Porsche; the other was that storage company, Safestore; the juxtaposition between the two he would not explain nor could he, he suspected, if he were to put an effort in, whereas of course his efforts were clearly directed at not understanding why a Porsche office (grey, black) might come alongside a Safestore (blue and cream), efforts that succeeded only after failing, because he failed to stop a fleeting musing that perhaps both plots of land, or companies, had the same owner, Arab, Russian, or possibly another Chinese consortium. Of the two Porsche was the stranger, what with his its logo, like its vehicles, almost squashed flat, indeed hewondered momentarily if Porsche, about which he knew nothing except that—befitting its history as amaker of tanks—it went in for themost destructive kinds of engine, eating up fuel and selling illusions that its owners were a cut above their fellow road users, perhaps Porsche was a translation of squashed , flattened, a much-needed translation since squashed was hardly a desirable selling point for a heap of metal and plastic which, truth be told, would never lord it travelling either stretch of the A4; Porsche was a brand for the broad, open road, of which there were none. In the first clear sight of a human for some time, since the giraffe’s eye was being attended to, a Squashed company employee in shirtsleeves, on the phone, came up against the display window, saw the rain, and turned back towards a black car model gleaming under lights. Againthetubpressed itself onhismind: heshouldkeepon.Would any of this, from the birds at the lake to the turtles to the ladders to the underpass, the carriageways, be fundamentally different, once Chinese management and money were in charge? No, only when the squirrels and foxes, led by the heron, its lieutenants the 225 Hot Tub