The countryside is sliding parallel to the road. I can’t resist the temptation to grip the steering wheel tighter and move my eyes from the never-ending street on the sides. The landscape is magnificent. The fields are white with snow. Here and there are small spots of green and yellow, old signs of a long departed fall. No. Stay focused. I move my eyes back to the road with a certain difficulty. I glance at the car’s speedometer and I notice the device showing over one hundred and fifty kilometres per hour. Way too fast for this crappy street. I don’t care. The hell with the car. The hell with my driving license. Luckily the road is empty, I haven’t seen a car in what seemed like ages. No, that’s ridiculous. I’ve only been driving for three hours. I left the highway half an hour ago. I surpassed another car 5 minutes ago. But there are no cars in sight. It’s freezing outside, but the road is dry. I hit the gas pedal, letting the car go even faster. One hundred and sixty kilometres an hour now. One hundred and seventy.
“Please observe the speed limit,” said a mechanical voice for the millionth time. Fuck you, GPS. Shut up. I still have many hours to drive. At least 10 hours left. It is eight thirty a.m. now. If I get there by 8 p.m. I will still get the chance to take a shower and sleep for a few hours. Twelve hours for eight hundred kilometres might seem ridiculous. But you don’t know the streets. You don’t know the people. No highways. Long convoys of trucks. Unfriendly assholes who would do anything to overtake other cars, trying to very few minutes by putting people’s lives at risk.
“Please observe the speed limit,” said the mechanical voice again. I glance again at the speedometer. One hundred and eighty kilometres per hour. Relax. The road is clean, it’s empty and I’m in a hurry. I reach next to the shifter and grab the pack of cigarettes. I pull one out and curse, not remembering where I’ve put the lighter. I let go of the steering wheel with my right hand and try to find it next to the pack of cigarettes. It isn’t there. I reach for my pockets. It’s there, I can feel it. I can feel the rounded shape of my favourite lighter. It’s almost a charm. I’ve had it for nearly three years. It still works. It only needed refilling every once in a while. I take it out and light it. I can feel the penetrating smell in my nostrils. I reach with the left hand for the button and let the window on my side slide down. Damn. I’ve opened it too much. I can hear the flatter of the air trying to rush in while the car is rushing with one hundred eighty kilometres an hour. I take my foot off the gas pedal. I feel the car slowing down. One hundred seventy. One hundred sixty. One hundred and fifty five. This is taking too long. I press the brake pedal softly. One hundred and thirty. One hundred and ten. This should suffice.
I play for a few seconds with the window button. I’ve finally found the right amount of open window. I shake the ashes at the end of the cigarette out of the window, then put the cigarette back in the left corner of my mouth. I concentrate on the street for a moment. I then take the cigarette out of my mouth with my left hand. I hold the cigarette for half a second between the index and the middle fingers then put the filter back in my mouth. I take a deep drag. I feel the smoke accumulating in my mouth before I take the cigarette out and take a deep breath. The smoke is sliding down my throat and reaches my lungs. The effect is instantaneous. I feel my right hand relaxing on the steering wheel while my left hand is shaking ashes from the cigarette out of the window. I look again at the speedometer. One hundred kilometres per hour. No wonder the GPS has been silent for the last few minutes. I hit the gas pedal again. One hundred and ten kilometres per hour. One hundred and thirty kilometres per hour.
“Please observe the speed limit,” said the mechanical voice again. I ignore it. I keep my right foot pressed on the gas pedal until I reach my cruising speed. One hundred and forty kilometres per hour.
“Please observe the speed limit.”
Whatever, dude. A car is coming the opposite way. A wild thought crosses my mind. What if pull the steering wheel to the left? What if you simply crashed my car in the other, kill myself and take the alien driver with me? No one would know. No one would be to blame. What would it say on the news? The driver of the Hyundai brand car registered in Austria seems to have lost control of the car on the slippery pavement and crashed violently in the car coming the opposite direction, led by 23 year old Michael B. Both drivers died on spot. The resuscitating measures taken by the paramedics who arrived only minutes later remained unsuccessful. Michael B. leaves behind a wife and a three year old daughter.
***
The car passed me a long time ago. My mind is still wandering. I’m approaching a small town or a village. I can see blurred shapes of houses in the distance. And I notice the hooker standing poorly dressed on the other side of the street. I imagine she’s freezing. Who the fuck cares? I haven’t even seen her face. I don’t know her name. All I know is that she’s standing there, on the side of the street like a hitchhiker. Only she’s wearing a mini dress showing her bare legs which I assume they’re almost blue from the cold. I see her scarlet top showing way too much skin to be healthy in January. I can see her face now. Shrill make-up covers her face. She might have been pretty a long or not so long time ago. Not even the scarlet rouge on her lips could not hide the purple shade behind it. Should I stop and offer her a ride in town? Ask her what her name is and why she is doing this? Nah, that’s retarded. There probably is her pimp hiding less than two hundred metres away awaiting his bitch to bring him money. Or she might get aggressive and attack me. Pull a knife out of fucking nowhere and threaten me, steal my money and my car. Fuck that shit.
***
It’s too late anyway. I’m almost out of the small town now. Damn speed limit. Why do they need a fifty km/h speed limit at ten a.m. on a Sunday morning? Retards. There’s hardly anyone on the street. OK, maybe except for the old hags going to the church when they’re eighty and repenting. Hypocrites. If I were God I wouldn’t forgive them. I imagine him right now standing on his throne somewhere in the sky, watching them and wearing a hearty smile while muttering “dumb bitches”. This thought makes me laugh.
Still smiling, I reach for another cigarette and search again for the lighter. It’s once again in my pocket. I light my cigarette and take a deep drag. I smile to myself and nod approvingly. I open the window a small amount and grab the steering wheel with my left hand, cigarette still held tightly between my fingers. I reach with my left hand for the stereo. I need some good music right now. Loud music. It starts at low volume.
Blink 182 – Mutt. Great, I love this song. I turn the volume louder, so loud that I feel the bass vibrating in my chest. I take another drag from the cigarette and let the smoke slid out of my nostrils while shaking my head to the music. When the lyrics begin, I start singing along: “he pauses shaving and he tells himself that he is the bomb – she has her curlers set her credit cards are paying the funds – he’s not that old, I’ve been told a strong sexual goal”. I keep humming the lyrics along as I overtake a car. What would happen if I snatched the steering wheel to the right while driving next to him? I’d probably damage both our cars and send him flying in the ditch next to the road. He’d see my license number, call the cops and I’d be arrested before I reached the boarders.
***
I keep driving. I’m hungry. I reach in the bag resting on the passenger’s seat. I pull out a sandwich and bite hungrily. Ham and cheese? Fair enough. Bit dry though. I reach again in the bag, not taking my eyes away from the road. I pull out an energy drink can. With the sandwich hanging from my mouth and a hand on the steering wheel, eyes focused on the street, I finally manage to open the can. I put it in the small drink compartment between the seats. I then proceed to take a bite out of the sandwich and put the rest on the passenger’s seat. While chewing, I grab the can and take a drink. Man, I love this taste. It’s not the caffeine I need in most of the cases when I drink energy drinks. The real reason why drink them is because they taste so fucking amazing. I take another sip out of the can and put it back in the drink compartment. It’s shaking a little. It’s normal. These compartments were made for coffee cups, which are slightly larger than a slim can. But I’ve never used them for coffee. I hate coffee. It tastes… Well, it tastes like shit.
I’m near the border now. Everywhere I look, there are big street signs giving directions to the next country I’m going to drive through. I reach the boarder. “Good afternoon,” says the slightly bored voice of the police officer, “passport please.” “Hello,” I say, handing him the passport I’ve just received one year ago. He browsed quickly through it, asked me my name, looked at me than back at the picture in the document, than back at me. “Have a nice trip, sir,” he said. “You too, good bye”.
WHAT THE FUCK, BRAIN?!
***
I’m getting closer to my destination. The speakers are blasting the tune of Swing, swing by The All-American Rejects “The sun is gone – The nights are long…” and I feel the temperature outside getting even lower. The headlights are turned on. I keep my eyes focused on the road. I blindly reach for the air conditioning controller and turn the heat up. I reach again for the cigarettes. Less than one hundred kilometres between me and my goal. I light the cigarette. Less than ninety kilometres away. I reach for my last can of energy drink. A small hole in the road makes me jump. Spill the energy drink on my shirt. I try to brush it away. My cigarette falls on my pants. I panic. I hit the brakes. The car begins to slide. The road is frozen. Headlights. Darkness.
***
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Ideas are bulletproof 