On the Matter of Repeated Vertical Infractions
Mabst | Process & Drafts (Filed under: Practice)
To Whom It May Concern at the Department of Aerial Conduct Violations:
I understand you have footage.
Before we proceed, I want to clarify that I have never used the word “flying.” Flying implies destination. Flying implies intent filed in triplicate. What you have observed, if your analysts have viewed the material correctly, is gliding—which is closer to falling in a direction, or perhaps refusing to fall at all. I trust you can see the distinction. I trust your training covers this.
I am aware that Section 14.7(b) of the Municipal Locomotion Code requires all pedestrians to maintain “continuous and verifiable contact with approved walking surfaces.” I am also aware that Section 14.7(c) provides exemptions for scaffolding, parade floats, and “acts of God.” I would like to formally request that my case be reviewed under 14.7(c). Not because I am claiming divine status. I want to be clear on that point. I am claiming practice.
You see, I am an artist. Some people call this “introvert.” I accept either term. Both mean the same thing: someone who has spent an unreasonable number of hours alone, trying something, failing at it, trying it again, failing better, and eventually—eventually—becoming difficult to explain.
I understand this is not a legal category.
I understand you do not have a form for this.
ADDITIONAL VIOLATIONS (Per Your Correspondence Dated [REDACTED])
I have received your supplementary notice regarding the sidewalk incidents.
Yes. There were sidewalk incidents.
I want to be transparent: when pedestrian density exceeds what I can navigate at ground level, I have occasionally—briefly—chosen altitude. I did not realize this constituted a violation of the Shared Pathway Vertical Limit (Section 22.3, “No user shall occupy airspace exceeding 7.5 feet above the designated walkway without permit, harness, or visible means of structural support”).
I had no harness.
I had no permit.
I had, at best, an invisible means of structural support, which I understand is the worst kind, from a documentation standpoint.
I would like to note, for the record, that I have never collided with a lamppost, a traffic signal, or a bird. I have never startled a drone. I have maintained what I would describe as exemplary altitude etiquette, though I recognize this is not a metric your department tracks. Perhaps it should be. I am happy to assist in drafting assessment criteria, if that would help my case.
REGARDING THE TOOL SHOP DEBT (Unrelated but Apparently Now Related)
I see from Appendix C of your filing that my account status at Renford Hardware has been entered into evidence.
I want to address this directly.
My payment was declined. This is true. I returned to settle the balance. This is also true. The proprietors were pleased to see me. They wanted to chat. I was in a hurry—not because I was fleeing, but because I was returning to my work. I am an artist. Some people call this “introvert.” I believe I have already explained this, but I am happy to explain it again, as many times as your process requires.
I do not understand why a hardware debt has bearing on an aerial conduct case, but I have learned that your department finds connections where others see only ordinary life. This is, I assume, a skill. Perhaps you practiced it. Perhaps you are artists too, in your way.
Perhaps you are also introverts.
THE MATTER OF THE APPROACHING VEHICLE
Your footage, I am told, includes a bus-like tractor apparatus—a trailer, I think it is called—approaching the intersection at speed.
I want to confirm: I saw it.
I want to confirm: I was not concerned.
This is not bravado. This is practice. When you have spent enough hours learning what your body can do, you develop a different relationship to what is approaching. You do not freeze. You do not calculate. You assess, adjust, and proceed. This is not magic. This is repetition. This is what happens when no one is watching for long enough that you forget anyone could be.
I forgot about the cameras.
I think this is the actual violation.
THE QUESTION OF THE EYES
I must disclose something I have not yet mentioned, in case your footage has captured it and I am later accused of omission.
Sometimes my vision fails.
Not fails—withdraws. Three, two, one, and then I am crossing the street using only memory and the sound of engines and the particular pressure of wind that tells me where solid things are. This is not a medical condition. I have not filed for disability accommodations. I do not know if your department handles such filings or if I must contact a different office.
I crossed the street blind.
I crossed it safely.
I mention this only because I want you to understand: I was not showing off. I was solving a problem. The problem was that I could not see, and I needed to reach the other side, and so I used what I had—which was practice, which was memory, which was the body I have spent years teaching to do what the body is “not supposed to do.”
If this constitutes an additional violation, please advise which form to complete.
IN SUMMARY
I am not requesting that you dismiss the charges.
I am requesting that you create a new category.
Something between “pedestrian” and “exempt.” Something that acknowledges skill without requiring permit. Something that makes room for the people who practiced so long, in such silence, that they became—briefly, intermittently, only when necessary—impossible.
I do not know what this category would be called.
I only know that I am not the only one, and the footage, if you review it carefully over enough years and enough intersections, will show you others. We are not organized. We have no guild. We do not meet. That would require leaving our practice, and we do not leave our practice.
We are too busy.
We are artists.
Some people call us introverts.
Submitted respectfully and with hope of procedural clarity,
[NAME WITHHELD PENDING CATEGORIZATION]
Your attention is the rarest currency. Thank you for the exchange.
— Mabst
Filed under: Practice.
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