Robert Arthur 13 min read

It was the darnedest traffic jam in White Plains, two blocks gutter to gutter, no one on a horn, drivers peering under their hoods, and a cool little blonde girl clutching a hatbox.

Robert Arthur's 1954 story is a wry hard-SF and social-SF tale of an unassuming marvel. Clever, genial golden-age SF. Read it for a warm, funny story where a small-town electronics man and a remarkably self-possessed little girl are at the center of a mystery that snarls a whole town's traffic.

In its time

Published in 1954, during the 1950s, post-war optimism meets cold war anxiety.

Reading it

13 min read (a short story, a single idea, delivered and gone).

Illustrated by

Cavat