The Trip. A Really Short Story by Jaime
…it was as if everything was in slow motion. Derek jerked the wheel of the dirt brown Pinto hatchback and swerved sharply to the left before lashing back to the right, speeding ever to the looming precipice. Yet at this precise, daunting moment, only one nagging thought controlled his mind.
“Why? Why in hell do so many people on T.V. get their brake lines cut and they work just fine while driving through the neighborhood, or dropping the kids off at school, or secretly pulling in behind the adult book store before going in to get a grasp on something that will never restore things to the way things once were? But why the hell the second a steep grade and harrowing cliff appears out of nowhere they stop working, they hurl off and immediately blowing-up in mid-air as if that’s what autos are designed to do, ignite into fiery balls of death the second the tires leave the road, before they tumble head-over-ass like a rag to the jagged rocks below? Why?”
No matter. Derek was a survivor; a man who knew he had to do something quickly or he’d be roasted alive like some cheap K-Mart newspaper log. He forced open the heavy door with the last of his strength and jumped. As his body bounced and tore along a foot stripe of Ohio asphalt, Dereck he watched his mother’s Ford come to a quiet rest in the center median and was overcome by a moment of re-birth. If only he had seen the Peterbilt barreling down upon him from the other direction.
The End.
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