Yoandri, Miami’s universally detested god of traffic, looked down upon South Florida from his home high on Mount Tropical Park, and sighed dejectedly. On a whim, he raised the Brickell drawbridge. Nothing. He threw a barricade across the Golden Interchange. Nothing. He jacked up the Palmetto Express Lane toll to $85. Nothing. Utterly despondent, Yoandri sounded the emergency broadcast system, flustering a flock of ibis strutting down US-1. The birds regained their composure and resumed strutting. Yoandri sank deeper into despair.
Things were not always so bleak for poor Yoandri. Just a few weeks prior, the god of traffic levelled the full weight of his twisted genius into making Miamians 10% more miserable than humanly possible. The logical infeasibility of this feet did not remotely concern Yoandri. That was a problem for Miami’s long-suffering god of math and, of course, for its residents.
Yoandri reveled in methodically shattering the psyche of every driver braving Miami’s roads—throwing so much implausible idiocy at motorists that they’d themselves turn into gibbering idiots. Those newly converted idiots happened to be driving two-ton mobile steel killing machines, compounding local insanity and spreading mayhem around the city at an exponential rate. This was Yoandri’s preferred state.
The god’s favorite trick was to take an infuriating situation and simply pile a mind-flogging array of absurdity on top. For example, you might be traveling westward down SW 7th Street when another motorist going south on 4th Avenue suddenly decided to make an illegal left turn into oncoming traffic because the thrill grinding a major intersection to halt was the only thing that made her feel alive. You, along with a dozen other cars laid on your horns. The situation was bad enough, but then two Italian scooters carrying two Spanish men crashed into each other as they tried to skirt around the woman, blocking the other westbound lanes. They were fine, their scooters were fine, but their loud, hand-waving argument devolved into a loud, fist-throwing fight over La Liga.
A cop showed up, but rather than sorting things out, signaled that you and the 50 other cars behind you needed to reverse two blocks to the east because the Brazilian president’s executive secretary’s niece’s motorcade would be driving by, and she didn’t like looking at the poors. Taking advantage of the turmoil, a group of homeless persons gathered some local roosters into an impromptu cock fight in the middle of the street. The originally offending woman, Spanish men, cop, and Brazilian president’s secretary’s niece all stopped what they’re doing to place bets. Just as your brain was ready to mutiny, jump out your ear, and delegate your sentience and bodily functions to the liver, spleen, or any other organ stupid enough to take the job, a helicopter landed on your hood.
Though ostensibly random acts of pure lunacy, these daily occurrences were carefully choreographed by Miami’s god of traffic to produce the highest entertainment value possible. Just like most TV viewers would jump at the chance to crossover Tiger King with Stranger Things, Rick & Morty, and Breaking Bad, Yoandri loved nothing more than to sit back and watch the citywide pandemonium unfold. Now he mostly just sat and sulked.
Miami’s drivers, his previously unwitting playthings, had suddenly disappeared. He checked their usual haunts—the Palmetto, Turnpike, Flagler, Alton, the Kendall Palacio de los Jugos parking lot—but they were nowhere to be found. He missed them terribly, and whiled away the time moping, pouting, and concocting fiendishly unpleasant scenarios for when they finally returned to the roads.
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Andrew Otazo
'Miami Creation Myth' author Andrew Otazo has advised officials on Cuba policy, worked for the Mexican president, fired a tank, and ran with 30lbs of trash.
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