Bubble Conspiracy

Julie walked along the dusty street towards the glass-blower's work-shop. The late summer sun beams dappled the street and made shadows in the corners. Julie was excited, today she was going to set her Plan in motion. The Plan that had been germinating in her mind all through the summer, ever since she had seen the Corn Circles on the television news.

She hugged herself to contain her excitement and smiled at a large ginger cat who lay basking in a sun-beam. He smiled back lazily, then paid great attention to washing his paw leaving Julie in no doubt that she was no longer of interest. “Silly old cat” thought Julie “Soon the whole world will be interested in me.”

Eventually she found herself on the glass-blower's thresh-hold. Taking a deep breath she went in, she knew her request would be outrageous but if the man was intrigued enough he would make her the biggest glass bubble the world had ever seen.

Intrigued, Mario the glass-blower accepted the commission.

A few weeks later, very early on a misty Autumn morning, Mario drew up to Hyde Park in an enormous hired lorry. His very precious cargo was under a tarpaulin and anchored very securely. He looked at his passenger who was jiggling with excitement. Eyes sparkling, she urged him to drive into the park.

Several hours later London woke up. Everything seemed as normal. Until a couple of startled joggers came across the Object in the Park. There in the middle of the wide open green space was an enormous clear glass bubble.

Hardly able to believe it was actually there they trotted over for a closer look. The air was still misty and dew sparkled on the grass. Birds and the odd little squirrel had started to wake up, none suspecting the events that were about to shatter their tranquility.

The joggers jogged. The birds twittered. The squirrels searched for nuts. The mist started to clear, and the dew disappeared. Julie, sitting in the middle of her glass bubble, had observed all this and sat contentedly waiting to be discovered. Which, of course, she now was.

The two joggers looked at her and started to make signs, Julie ignored them. She sat gazing into space with a supercilious expression on her face, which was actually the only expression she could manage consumed as she was by a fit of the giggles.

She bit her lip and stared intently into the middle distance. The joggers tried shouting and making faces, and then being men, resorted to the kind of crude comments women have come to expect when confronted with Men In The Throes of Inadequacy.

After a short while the joggers were joined by other early morning visitors to the Park. They too were fascinated by Julie in her Bubble. Some tried yelling at her in foreign languages. One or two propositioned her. Most agreed the police should be called in. One decided there was money to be made here and quietly went to tip off the Press.

Ever obliging, the Press duly turned up. One or two reporters and a photographer at first, then the Television News. The by-stander who had telephoned the papers tried to do a deal with the reporters. He soon found out it wasn't going to be very lucrative informing the press about something that was happening in such a public place.

He thought of offering a bruise on his shin to one of the tabloids to photograph, but while he was deciding which was the better story: I got kicked by a Giant Tabloid Reporter, or: I acquired this bruise whilst walking into a Giant Glass Bubble, the Girl in the Bubble rose out of her seat and appeared to be addressing the assembled muck-rakers.

Julie had planned this very carefully. She looked for all the world as if she had something important to impart to the crowd. She signed and gesticulated eloquently. Everyone watched her every move, and everyone came to the same conclusion. None of them could understand any of it. Julie contrived to look disappointed and wondered how she was going to keep this up all day.

More easily than she'd imagined as it turned out. Sitting in her Bubble observing humanity at close quarters was quite an eye-opener. They seemed to be a lot more pre-occupied with the impression they were making on her than she was with the impression she was making on them.

Sometimes it was disturbing. There were people in the crowd who were so awe-struck they reacted to her as if she was a Goddess. Most worrying of all was the fact that these people were in the majority.

The few who feigned only amused interest or out-right scepticism became more and more out-numbered as the day wore on. Julie began to fear that it wasn't going to be as easy to walk away from this little wheeze as she had imagined.

She would have to sit tight until night-fall and hope to escape in the dark. Cold as it was for October her audience had shown no signs of going anywhere. They all stood and waited.

At home, Mario was watching the event on television. it had made headlines in the Evening Papers and now here it was on the Nine o'clock news. He watched again at Ten o' clock. Still the same thing: Julie cutting an enigmatic figure, swathed in Silver Foil and sitting in her Glass Bubble in the middle of Hyde Park. People being interviewed and asked where they thought she came from.

Mario listened incredulously to some of the theories. One or two people even claimed to have seen something falling out of the sky earlier in the day. No-one even hinted that they thought it might be a hoax. People just would not believe that something so incredible might all be the work of a mischievous girl who had seen the programme on the Corn Circles and had simply wanted to test people's gullibility.

Mario started to wonder at the wisdom of being sworn to secrecy on this. It could have been a marvellous advertisement for his business. He sighed. Looking at all the trouble it was causing it might be a good thing to keep quiet after all.

Back at Hyde Park Julie started to put the next stage of the plan into operation. She stood up and moved to the secret door in the Bubble. This was a cleverly conceived revolving door. It only worked if two people used it at the same time. One on the outside and one on the inside.

Then the person on the inside of the Bubble would be out and free, and the person coming in from the outside would be in the Bubble and trapped. Of course the unsuspecting newcomer wouldn't know this and would be left with the task of persuading another innocent to take their place.

Julie had a distinct advantage over the next occupant of the Bubble. Everyone wanted to get inside to talk to her.

Smiling, she beckoned a reporter to the door. At last, after waiting all day in the cold some-one was about to get their scoop. Julie stepped into her side of the revolving door and flicked her switch. The outside part of the door opened and without a moment's hesitation her news-hound stepped in. Julie took a step forward into the night. Her puzzled would-be interviewer found himself projected into the Bubble. Trapped.

The next bit was going to be tricky for Julie. She had to disappear before anyone could grab her. Fortunately they were all so wary of her, no-one would come too close. Inside the Bubble the reporter was starting to shout for help. Taking a deep breath Julie released a couple of small smoke bombs and unfurled the black velvet cloak she had carried under her 'space-suit'. By the time the smoke cleared she was slipping unnoticed into the darkness of the park.

The media's attention was now on Joe Reporter who was frantically trying to get out of Julie's Glass Bubble. He was a reasonably intelligent man and soon realized how he had been tricked. Now all he had to do was trick another sap into taking his place. How to do it?

continued...

By the time he had persuaded another Journalist With A Nose For A Story to take his place Julie was at home. Sipping cocoa in front of the telly and wondering at how well her little stunt had worked. She had begun to think it would have worked even better if she had done it nearer to Christmas. With a blue cloak covering her head instead of her silver space-suit.

She sighed. Putting an empty Glass Bubble in the middle of Hyde PArk and leaving people to make up their own minds as to what it represented had seemed like such a laugh at first. Now though, even through the giggles, she had started to feel pangs of conscience.

She knew there had been sick people in her audience hoping for a cure. Religious people hoping for a Second Coming. Ufologists hoping for confirmation of all their theories. Ad-men hoping to make a fast buck.

All the people of the early Twenty First Century trying t make Julie and her Glass Bubble fit their pet theories. All hoping for a miracle of some sort or another. A miracle of healing. A miracle of finance pr the miracle of being proved right, just for once.

Back at the Park the media had begun to get the hang of the Bubble. The next day's newspapers hyped up the story for all they were worth. There was nothing the Government could do to silence the story so they kept very, very quiet. If anyone asked they would give a knowing nod and a wink to hint that they were perfectly well aware of what it was.

The Mayor was secretly delighted as the tourist trade boomed and did everything to be as mysterious as possible about it.

Besides that, the Bubble sat in Hyde Park for years. Everyone was scared to move it and no-one wanted the responsibility for it. And it was making a lot of money. Of course, it always had someone inside it waiting for the next victim who could be persuaded inside.

People started to be faced with choices: could they really just walk by and leave some poor soul in there, perhaps for days, with no refreshment? Volunteers started to turn up on the odd occasion to rescue their suffering fellow man. It was the only good deed some of them ever did in their whole miserable lives.

Occasionally a Would-Be Saint would go in there hoping for a divine rescue. But after a few days of discomfort and hunger it would dawn on them that they really would have to rely on other people to get them out.

People began to be divided between those who would trust the ret of human-kind and those who wouldn't. The question was asked in pubs "Would you sit in the Bubble?" This wasn't actually a bad thing because a drunk on a dare was sometimes your only hope if you found yourself in there (often after your own good night out).

Julie spent the rest of her life being amused by her Bubble and the antics it induced in the rest of the population. Given the scope it provided for acts of altruism by some of them she began to see that maybe her little prank had made her a saviour of sorts after all.

The glass-blower wondered when someone would ever examine the thing properly and find the tiny, tiny inscription on the bottom: Made at Mario's.

reply to post by berenike


Awesome story berenike! You are a great writer. I am going to share this story later on with the kids. I know they will like it too!

reply to post by jackflap


Thank you very much - this sort of encouragement really means a lot to me.

Hi, kids