Writing Group Sprint

12th November, 1 hour, @500 words, 1st person

It resonated first in my ankle; the perpetual collusion of rubber and asphalt apparently inert against this new dawn; the rising of the car’s axle, knuckles and tie-rod ends screaming separation into fresh life. A bid for freedom at the behest of an uninvited watery catalyst. My right foot, cased in new blue and brown off-brand Italian casual sneakers with EVA soles absorbs about two and a half thousand bouncing revs, gifted by the ridged stainless steel and Vietnamese rubber textured acceleration pedal.

From this right ankle the vibration ascends, sending my skeleton through the PU foam seat and back to it’s birth, all life forgotten and all acts forgiven. As if preserved in amber I recognise the scorpion flash of a nightmare awakening to the infinite 4am nothingness of too many dark nights and the now searing song of my since long abandoned adrenal glands. In the instant I silently petition the future for many slick, oily days to return my system from this unexpected adventure.

With ankle, skeleton and stomach cheerleading the moment my eyes light up and the sleepy head awakens; a reactor of tension and blind suggestion, empty of all but the most vapid explanations and silent box of solutions. My heart is tardy joining the party. Announcing its arrival in signals broadcasting life throughout the tired capillaries of its most neglected outposts.

I am technically flying but I do not pilot a winged craft and my voyage can be no longer than 500 milliseconds. Even so, the aperture is enough to recall capturing infinite clarity, supreme knowledge and the omniscient entirety of life reflected in some sort of calm, eternal, universal dance on teenage hillsides; helicopter arms, bomber jackets, purple dungarees, mackerel skies, no such word as fear, magnetic mornings and endless summers. It’s never the hope that kills you but always the new chemistry that leaves you for dead.

Two thirds of the way into this half-second, as soon as I might have grasped all that we humans reach for and in twin imagined the unawakening sleep of the end I am reliably informed through my ear canal and my shoulder blades that my tyres have remarried beautifully with the soaking shining bitumen. My skin softens, the coat of vellus hairs sigh a collective relief and my directed heel pivots as I cushion the pillowed brake pedal, ever so gently, signaling a recognition of the message sent from the road surface.

We, the car and I, proceed zero point seven km and shift down to lower gears in preparation for our exit. In this recalibration my memory presents a story that human chemical productions are metabolised in about ninety seconds but we often live them for lifetimes; the trouble with these production prompts is that we replay their triggers over and over again in the mind. This creates an echo chamber for joy, panic, ecstasy and terror. The body cannot separate event from memory and so, this replay keeps the chemical wheel moving, regardless of momentary presence or eternalism. It takes around ninety seconds to reach the turn. There are other vehicles but none are mine. There are other pilots but none are me. No-one has shared those five hundred milliseconds. I drop my left arm and signal left, steering the car to the lip of the turn on this black river. We, the car and I, leave the highway, relieved and breathing, enveloped by the evening

.