IMPOSSIBLE FABLES · A TUESDAY IN OCTOBER · THE HUNGARIAN PLAIN
The horde on the motorway
On a Tuesday in October, out of the ground fog of the Hungarian plain, ten thousand riders of Batu Khan’s army come through onto the M5 motorway near Kecskemét, still carrying orders written in 1241. The one fable in the atlas told from our side: the past visits us, and is met by dashcams, quarantine law and an offer of asylum.
You are reading the timeline that almost was · notes marked THE RECORD are real history
A TUESDAY IN OCTOBER · 05:52
No bridge of causes leads to the timeline recorded here. The atlas files it among the fables, and marks it apart on the shelf: in every other fable, ours is the century that visits. In this one we are visited. On a Tuesday in October, out of the ground fog of the puszta, ten thousand riders of Batu Khan’s army come through onto the M5 motorway south of Kecskemét: a full tumen of the Golden Horde, mid-campaign, under orders written in 1241. The first record is a trucker’s dashcam, eleven seconds of fog, and then the fog acquiring riders. The second is a police car door from Kecskemét, holding three arrows grouped tighter than a fist.
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