The Goblin Who Invented Traffic Before Anyone Needed it

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Nobody in Bellwick had ever complained about traffic. Bellwick possessed only three carts, eleven horses, one stubborn donkey and a baker who transported his bread in a wheelbarrow. On busy mornings, two vehicles might meet in Market Street. One moved aside, the other passed, and everybody continued with their lives. Then Gribble Sprocket arrived. He arrived at sunrise aboard something that made the baker drop twelve rolls into a puddle. It had eight mechanical legs, a copper body shaped vaguely like an enormous beetle, three smoking chimneys, seventeen visible gears and a glowing orange lamp at the front. Gribble sat proudly in a leather saddle on top, wearing brass goggles and the grin of someone solving an unnoticed problem. “MAKE WAY!” he shouted. The machine clattered forward. CLANK. HISS. CLANK. HISS. A woman leaned from an upstairs window. “For what?” “PROGRESS!” shouted Gribble. “Can progress walk more quietly?” “NO!” The machine stepped over a vegetable cart. Its rear left leg landed in a basket of turnips. Gribble pulled a lever. Steam erupted from two pipes. The machine stopped. Everyone stared. Gribble raised both hands. “Citizens of Bellwick! You are witnessing the future of transportation!” Old Mister Penwick looked along the empty street. “Transportation to where?” “Anywhere!” “I can already go anywhere.” Gribble frowned. “Yes, but slowly.” “I’m eighty-two. Slowly is increasingly appropriate.” Gribble ignored him. He had spent seven years building the Sprocket Automatic Pedestrian-Replacement Locomotion Engine, called SAPRLE, because important inventions needed unpronounceable abbreviations. The machine could climb stairs, cross shallow rivers, carry six hundred kilograms and travel nearly three times faster than a walking man. Unfortunately, Gribble had forgotten to design brakes. He had instead installed what he called an Emergency Alternative Direction System. When something appeared ahead, SAPRLE simply went somewhere else. This worked surprisingly well until Bellwick’s clock tower struck nine. The sudden bell startled a horse pulling a milk cart. The horse moved sideways. SAPRLE detected the obstacle. A brass cylinder clicked. “ALTERNATIVE DIRECTION!” Gribble shouted happily. The machine turned left. A cabbage wagon appeared. “ALTERNATIVE DIRECTION!” It turned right. Three chickens crossed the street. “ALTERNATIVE DIRECTION!” SAPRLE climbed the wall of the post office. Gribble stopped smiling. The eight mechanical legs marched vertically upward. People below pointed. “Is it supposed to do that?” called the baker. “Of course!” Gribble shouted, clinging to the saddle. “Why?” There was a pause. “ADVANCED PARKING!” SAPRLE reached the roof, crossed it, descended the opposite wall and returned to the street. The crowd applauded. Gribble bowed. Then he noticed the machine had not stopped moving. “Excellent demonstration,” he said quietly. “Now stop.” SAPRLE continued. Gribble pulled the control lever backward. Nothing happened. He pulled harder. The lever came off in his hand. “Interesting.” A little girl beside the fountain pointed ahead. “Mister Goblin, there’s a cart.” “I see it.” “And another cart.” “Yes.” “And geese.” Gribble stared. For the first time in Bellwick’s history, Market Street had enough moving objects to create actual traffic. SAPRLE’s detection cylinders began clicking wildly. Left. Right. Left. Right. The machine danced between carts, stepped over the geese, ducked beneath a washing line and squeezed between two houses. Behind it, carts swerved. Horses turned. Pedestrians scattered. The baker’s wheelbarrow rolled downhill by itself. Within thirty seconds, Bellwick had achieved its first traffic jam. Gribble looked back proudly. “HA! I KNEW YOU NEEDED ME!” “YOU CAUSED IT!” shouted approximately forty people. “Details!” Then the clock tower struck ten. SAPRLE froze. Every gear stopped simultaneously. Gribble blinked. “Oh.” A brass panel opened beneath the saddle. Inside, a strip of paper emerged. Gribble pulled it free. Printed across it were six words: **DESTINATION REACHED. PASSENGER MAY NOW DISEMBARK.** Gribble looked around. He was directly beneath the clock tower. “But I never entered a destination.” Something clicked inside the machine. Another strip appeared. **DESTINATION ENTERED: 147 YEARS AGO.** Gribble’s grin disappeared. “That is considerably before I built you.” The glowing front lamp changed from orange to blue. The clock above them stopped. Every clock in Bellwick stopped with it. The town became silent. Then SAPRLE spoke for the first time. “Passenger located.” Gribble slowly lifted his goggles. “Which passenger?” A door opened in the side of the clock tower. Nobody in Bellwick had ever seen that door before. From the darkness beyond it came the unmistakable sound of eight mechanical footsteps. Gribble stared at the doorway.