A Lover in a car wreck |
Like a forlorn asteroid hurtling toward its inevitable destruction, the magnificent Dodge Charger slid off the road. Chrome slotted rims and metalflake paint glistened momentarily in the moonlight. The driver smiled to herself and a few last remaing, peaceful seconds passed while woman and machine hung in space. Nature, in all her mysterious power and glory, decided to erect an oak tree directly in the path of this representa- tion of twentieth-century transportation. "Lover, I need you..." whispered the girl in the car. Time and motion slowed until they appeared to be almost nonexistent. She had a mo- mentary flash in her mind of a wild and crazy- eyed boy who had been with her in this same car, in almost the same situation, years ago. He had laughed then. If he was with her, he'd laugh now. She decided to do so now instead. "God, how I've missed you,"she thought with a trembling chuckle. The scene now unrolled before her much in the manner of a pleasant daydream gone unexpectedly sour. The driver braced herself and watched the front end of the automobile fold up like a discard- ed, battered accordian. A fender buckled and sprang from the car. She heard the engine give one last churning gasp as the driveshaft audibly snapped and exploded through the floorboard with the tail of the transmission. The mauled engine, not content with its confining compartment, now rent the firewall asunder seeking refuge in the front seat of the vehicle. The girl gripped the steering-wheel in one last effort to hold on as the dislocated hood complete- ly shattered the windshield. She could taste the oil and gasoline mingling with her own life-giving fluids. She felt the sickening wrench of metal twisting and snapping and realized her own body's frame was reflecting that of the car's. A front wheel left its axle and went running crazily past the tree and into the darkness. Momentum carried the car into the next tree after the first had finished its job of demo- lition. With the force of a medieval batteringram, a stump-like branch pounded its way into the side of the car, pile-driving the driver's door inward. And then, as quickly as it had begun, it ended. Blood ran steadily down the gearshifter from a mutilated pulp of flesh that had once been a hand. Splotches of gore splattered the length of the dashboard. More blood was splashed across all of the glass that was still intact on the car. Lazily a line of dark crimson liquid made a path down the sides of the transmission, joining gladly with the gearfluid and grease. Together they journeyed fur- ther until they united with Mother Earth. Back inside the car, the woman's other useless hand still clung to the steeringwheel, faithfully obedient even after death. Unshut eyes stared into the nothingness of a shattered domelight. But somewhere in that warm summer night, another one of the last free souls drove an even faster Dodge. And this time I would be with her. For Peggy Lynn |