A stopsign is nothing but a red blur reading "ZzzzzzstopaNG" when you blow through it at 55 mph. I jump from 4th to 5th with a thunderous kick. The gear usually reserved for lazy coasting on a doublewide freeway is now putting my 83 Dachshund ZX-Zee through it's murderous, mind numbing paces down a backroad on the edge of our county.
The moon peeks through the trees every now and again, gazing through it's fingers at this lost-soul bound full speed ahead with no game plan except to let those six cylinders open up wide. Let the roar of the injection and barely-muffled exhaust drown out any thoughts. It's all about clutching those shifts right, keeping your velocity above 65, juicing into those turns perfectly to punch on through them. Scanning with the hi-beams, checking the rearview for a shire-reif looking to drag you on his terms.
My face is a mask of remarkable calm. I puff my pipe, scan oncoming headlights for the shape of cv beams. Scope the road ahead for any curve dangerous enough to leave my Zee wrapped around a Eucalyptus tree. Beyond that, nothing. I let my thoughts and feelings float out the window with the smoke into the wind.
Sliding behind the wheel of your ride, pointing yourself south and deciding-Ok, I've got half a tank left, that gives me 220-odd miles of range, let's get going. That's simple. Mindless. A bit of brazen, high-stakes driving leaves no room for you to remember the hours before. It's dangerous, at this speed, to lose concentration like that. Start thinking about that evening. The look in her eyes. The tone of her voice. The truth written plainly there. The depth and expanse of your mistake setting in with a feeling like a punch to the soft guts. The flash bulb illuminating the basic fact: you aren't as innocent as you thought. An accidental cut bleeds just the same. You can hurt the one you care about most, the one thing you said you would not do.
The crumbling of that one promise threatens to do you in. The foundation shift, the walls have buckled, and to understand truly the compromise you made to yourself would bring the whole thing down into the void. Swimming in black, lacking the basic anchor of integrity even to yourself.
No, jam the throttle down, push it harder. The road opens up. 70. 80. Push it to 85. You're close to speed that offers transcendence. The wheels lift from the road, the wind makes you deaf with shrill whistling. Scenery blows by so quick that it loses all detail. A new world. No sound, only a blur to the eyes. Everything rooted to the wheel in your hands, a slight tap of your foot and 1.2 seconds of reaction time.
My turn blows by in a flash on the right. Shit. It's half a mile behind in seconds. The cardinal rule at speeds this fast is never, ever, double back on your trail. It's the easiest favour you can do to any foes you've picked up in the last twenty miles, and it hasn't fooled anyone who has seen the blues brothers at least once. No choice though, further on is just more strawberry fields and moonlit marshland.
I come up to a crossroads and kick down in preparation for the ol' four point turn. Suddenly-lights. Lights blinding me from the right. 3 sets, shooting onto, into, right over my low slung Zee. It's a goddamned semi, a big one. Far too large to be out here on a coincidence at 11 on a Thursday night. It's got to be one of the dozens of roadhawks hired by the Mossland chamber of commerce to hunt down any yahoo due south from the City of Surf.
To hell with the idea of surrendering. Not with a 2.8 liter, six in line under my foot. I won't be surrendering to a speeding ticket from someone who picks his teeth with swamp reeds. Swinging around hard with every shock lurching, I top out third and tear up the road behind me. The mercenary never has a chance. His headlights are disappearing into the darkness behind like the eyes of a sad panda into the mist.
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Time to make my exit, and you could not ask for a better road than this one for it. Desolate on both sides, only brown earth and the humble homes of farm workers lining it. Not another soul to be seen, and I am a ghost with lights low and throttle silenced. I come upon a ranger station with a harsh florescent doing all it can to project authority onto a sign demanding I pay a park fee or stay the hell away. It is impotent without a brownshirt or steel gate to enforce.
As my eyes adjust to the darkness, the expanse below me opens up. I am parked atop a bluff, about half a mile below me is the beach. I am elevated, but my height cannot stand for a moment against the power I view below me. Waves roll in, I watch their crest and peak, and follow the break as it travels up the coast. Their goliath rumblings humble the purr of the Zee's motor instantly. In the pale light of the moon the shiloettes of the trees play tricks on my eyes.
Part of me is saying I need to stay frosty, keep an ear cocked for a ranger or the neighbors approach. A greater part is feeling the weight of everything I ran from catch up to me.
Back in town is a girl who took the chance on me, who saw more in me than I could, and drew it out to bloom. It is easy, effortless to be someone I am proud of whenever I am around her. With everyday I feel more of what she is doing to me, I realize more what a gift she is. And everyday I ask myself... how did I get lucky enough, worthy enough to deserve this? When did that happen? I could wonder forever, but what I know is someone like this, a person so rare and wonderful, someone like this deserves the best you can give. Never, ever does she deserve to be hurt by you.
I light up my pipe again, and sit here in the dark with the knowledge that I hurt my lady. It twists in my guts, screws my brian into an ugly tangle of regrets mixing with the desperation to make it right. But my Zee is not a time machine, nothing can undo my mistake. The realization of this rolls over me in a panic. How easy to fix, if you could just go back and just think, think for a minute! How much pain you could avoid, for her and yourself. The future, yes: plot as quick a course as possible to it, without a fear or doubt in the world. But what I wouldn't do to undo this ugly bit of past.
Words are swirling in my brain like angry Bolivian wasps, so loud in their condemnation I can hear their wings in my ears. The crescendo comes in a wave of helpless understanding. You can't go back, only forward. The line goes one way.
Then, they're gone. Just like that. But there is not silence. Something is as loud as those buggers. Louder, even. But it is not buzzing, or the drone of a semi truck approaching. It is the rhythm of the waves. Crashing one after another, endless and unnotticing. Unaware of their limitless power, and just as unaware of me cursing my inability. The edge of the horrizon touches the sky and stars, one infinity meeting another. Power incomprehensable. Expanses limitless. Out there in the depths of the ocean currents shape and change the world in ways I could never hope to. Up in the sky, where spaces and possibilities limitless leave enough room for anything to be done or redone.
I am looking right at all the power and ability I would pray to have now. To undo the wrongs I have inflicted upon someone I would do anything to show just an once of my true feelings for. Undo the ugly mistakes that mask my true intentions. As they have always been, these powers are out of my hands. I stare out at that horrizon, and I try to hope, but I understand. The line goes one way, and it is what lies ahead on it that matters. I have hurt my dearest, but I have been blessed by her. The fact that she ever gave you that chance, doesn't that make you want to live up to it? Now how can you show her what your soul really is? You will never have all that you can see here, those mystic powers you ponder so feebly. So use what you do have. And deep down in that doubting soul, you know that you have enough. Enough true feeling that no matter how you scuff or smudge it as you try to give it, it will shine through.
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Back on 1, taking it easy in the slow land at 65. I have me some work to do back home, that is for sure. No rush though. I have never felt more ready for it.
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