There were hardly any cars on the double-lane road going through the city that morning. It was just about dawning when a flatbed truck appeared in the distance. It rattled loudly as if it was about to fall into a thousand pieces the next moment. After a bend, it stopped with a loud bang and put the hazard lights on. Two stubby men got out. One of them took an orange traffic cone, measured the road up a little bit with his eyes, and then put the cone on the tarmac at about an equal distance from each side. They both got back in the car, the doors shut with a slam, and leaving a thick cloud of smoke behind they drove off.

The morning started off slowly, only a few cars appeared first, followed by more and more. A low-sitting blue sport coupe was casually weaving through the slow traffic. Right in front of the cone the driver yanked the steering wheel in the last moment and almost hit the taxi rolling next to him. The blue car braked hard, spun around, but left without a collision – you could hear the driver turn up the volume of the thumping AC/DC. The taxi driver got so frightened that he had to pull over to calm down. He took deep breaths, massaged his temple, and quietly whispered a prayer, as there were only a few months left on the bank loan he took out for the car. Seeing this near-miss the other vehicles slowed down when bypassing the obstacle. Soon, the traffic was only crawling along.

In the afternoon, an SUV driver found the unusual traffic jam a bit suspicious, put the window down, and leaned out to see what the cone was there for. When he felt the hot air mixed with exhaust on his face, he put the window up again, turned the air conditioning down to 18 degrees, and started ringing his colleagues instead. The afternoon rush soon reached its peak. A youngish blonde woman in sunglasses was confused first, then she started swearing loudly when she realised she was not getting to the kindergarten to pick up her kids on time. She called every phone number she had for the teachers and was finally calmed down by one of the old nannies who had heard of the problem and explained that they were online with at least a dozen of the parents, so she should not worry, they would wait for her.

The obstacle had been standing on the road for three days when traffic control was notified of it. A deep voice readily reassured the caller that he would check on the upheaval. The operator on duty was not able to get to the scene as the only company car was being repaired, but the road administrator sent an official letter to seventeen of the utility providers involved. They asked for eight days to reply considering the urgency of the matter. One of them refused to give a direct answer referring to secret national economic interests; others were eager to prove the lack of their competence and jurisdiction. One of them sent an inspector in disguise to the scene and asked for an extension of the deadline. After a few weeks, it turned out that no one knew about any work in progress that would justify the appearance of the cone. This information actually had no relevance by then; drivers got used to the obstacle and routinely drove around it.

Eight weeks later, the flatbed truck turned up again at a late hour. It stopped in the middle of the road, right behind the orange cone. The two uniformed men got out, one of them grabbed the plastic by its tip and put it down again, a good ten metres further away. Then they drove off.

The order that had settled in the past period broke down. Cars were crawling along again, impatient drivers tooting their horns, some of them shouting ‘bloody idiots’ at the others next to them, and why they don’t use the life-saving zipper principle. In the chaos, an electric car bumped into a minibus in front of it. The driver was checking the news on his phone and noticed only too late that the queue had stopped before him. The traffic, which had already been very slow, was completely paralysed by this incident. Drivers tried to bypass the two crashed vehicles and the cone at the same time. It took at least two hours until police managed to divert traffic through the side streets.

At the same time, street vendors appeared by the side of the road selling ice cream and cold non-alcoholic beer, shouting at the top of their voices. The queue was just about to move when an old Ford drove past one of the vendors. A three-year-old little boy strapped into the back seat started to cry inarticulately when he saw the ice cream. His father wound the window down and tried to bargain for the overpriced sweet, but the cars behind him were honking their horns aggressively. Things almost turned ugly, and police processing the scene of the accident had to arrest the ice cream vendor for not giving a receipt. A news crew arrived to report on the situation after an anonymous caller, referring to an unnamed internal source, threatened with more roadblocks across the city.

When hearing the news, more and more people felt the need to take a sympathy tour on the road. Double-decker tour buses appeared and drove on the 5-kilometre section of the road back and forth several times a day. Behind the windscreens there were ‘cones everywhere’ signs; some people were seen giving interviews about how well things were going in this city, and an old lady even heard of a romance folding between the drivers of two cars sitting in the slow traffic.

After a few days, traffic quietened down and people drove around the cone slowly but continuously. At that point, the flatbed truck showed up again. The two men got out and replaced the orange cone with a pink one. The change of colour sparked complaints from the public within minutes. The road administrator and utility providers objected to it. Nobody knew the reason why the cone had been changed to pink, but they all agreed that it was unsafe and not clearly visible. The local MP called it an outright provocation. On the same day, an improvised press conference was held, during which they assured the public that the cone would soon be changed back to the orange one that worked so well at diverting traffic. The flatbed truck did arrive a few hours later and replaced the pink cone with the original one amid a huge ovation.

Some people took selfies with the returned cone, drone footages were made, and the local MP posted about his satisfaction on social media thanking the authorities for their devoted work and local residents for their support. At the end of his post, he mentioned that, depending on finances, new cones will be placed on further sections of the road in order to make the community stronger. The ice cream vendor applied for a permanent licence, kept alcoholic drinks under the counter, and the love couple announced their engagement.

On a Monday morning, however, the flatbed truck arrived again. It braked hard at the cone, the men picked it up and drove off. Traffic did not get any faster, though. Cars drove around the spot where the cone used to be for years to come.