Those Strange Boxes

We spray-painted empty ice cream black and strapped them partway up lamp posts. That is, Tom painted them and Lou shimmied up the streetlights. It was my job to start the rumours, but I never had to. By the end of the week I'd heard they were scanners to check you weren't rat running and pest control for plague-carrying Chinese bats. We thought one would get smashed down, they'd see it was empty but for a smear of Neapolitan, and that would be that. But the fire didn't leave much evidence. And when I said it had gone too far, Tom shrugged and said: "Maybe they've got a point."