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It’s been another long day. The rush at the hospital was almost unbearable but in the end was somehow manageable. It was all the classic motions that I have practiced everyday for the past four years. The same cycle to be repeated everyday till the end of our time. Another piece of machinery in society. Society will say you are useful but in the end you are nothing but replaceabl, temporary. Everything remarkable you did in your lifetime someone else can do. Life is often so bland and tasteless. I feel it again, like a growing rock in stomach, the craving. The sirens flashed blue and red behind me. I know why, it was a simple reason anyone could spot. Would they issue a ticket, a warning. There were two of them, sitting in their smug little cab, their faces illuminated by their lights, the sound piercing my ears and overriding the sound of the radio playing lightly. I began to slow, I look back to see them doing the same, so predictable. In that moment I made the choice. There was no one to miss me, no one to mourn me if I was to die trying. The radio was lightly playing a pop song. I smiled slightly and looked in my review mirror seeing the content satisfaction already settling on the officers faces. They already thought they won. I knew I would make them work for it. I turned up the radio and pressed my gas pedal harder, the muscle in my calf flexing. I smiled, not without a fight. The roads where empty, the digital clock read 2:11 a.m. The occasional cars that would drive by where in awe of the sight. I was a sighted to gawked at. Why was I running? What was I really running from? The police? Hardly. They were the excuse I would use. A sharp curve was coming up ahead. the sign for the curve said to go slow, 15 miles per hour was recommend. I glanced at my speedometer which told me my current speed of 120 miles per hour. I smiled, accepting the challenge. Behind me the officers exchanged worries glances. Confusion and wonder graced their features, was this worth it? I slammed the breaks and jerked my wheel left to follow the curve and accelerated through the rest. I laughed as pure joy and adrenaline pumped through me. The officers where further behind me, as they decided to take the curve at a safer speed. I was winning, I was going to be victorious. I could see the end of the road approaching, the end where the cliff ran out of ground to drive on. Nothing was there except a measly railing to guard us from the two hundred foot drop into the rocky waves below. I knew it, this was my moment. I pushed the gas harder than I thought possible. The needle on the speedometer inching past the 140 tick towards the 160. The officers behind me still following at a safe distance began to slow as they awaited my next move, would I turn? Would I continue straight? A answer only I knew, knowledge only I possessed, an exhilarating thought, to be the only person in the world with the answer to a question. Only twenty miles till the road would run out. It would pass quickly to anyone watching but to me, who was aching for the end, it felt like a lifetime. I remembered my life, all of it, in that short spur of time. Did I really want this? Of course. What better way for a story listener to die than to become a story themselves? All I had were stories. Stories of the more fortunate, braver, more interesting. But now I would be a story. A mystery, an enigma, a puzzle to be solved. Why would someone so normal, so seemingly content do something so rash and unpredictable? Maybe its because it’s been my secret craving since the dawn of my existence. The rush, the boldness, the courage to do something drastically dramatic. I’m flying now, the railing is gone, demolished, it’s pieces scattered behind me. Temporarily broken, easily replacable as such most things in life. The air holds me only for so long before it gives and I begin my descend towards the rocky shore. Everything in my car defies gravity. Small coins are flying along side the small hula dancer that used to sit perched on my dashboard. The cross hanging around my mirror reaches for the sky. I even find myself being raised from seat slightly. Funny, I think, that as we fall we are simultaneously being pushed upwards, almost as if gravity, though eventually practices its law, is on your side. I hit the ground. Glass is shattered and has pierced me, airbags push their sharp edges further into me. I smell gas and see smoke. My arm is broken, I can tell. For a moment I think I will survive until I feel the large shard of glass that has made itself part of my neck. The police will try to save me, but they will fail. I will bleed out before they get here. Crime scene analyst will be able to tell that it wasn’t instantaneous, my death. That I died suffering. My legacy is this, a question that will haunt the officers that chased me, the dectectives that try to solve this case, the news reporters. The question of why. What was she hiding? Why, a broken heart, a loveless home, to join someone? I smile the greatest I can muster under these circumstances. For again, I only have the answer. Me, singularly and alone know my reason and the answer will die with me. A mystery with an answer that can only be theorized based on cold facts but not the intense emotional that truly was to blame. Forever they will wonder, why would she chose to die rather than stop for cops over a broken tail light? The answer is...

July 10, 2020 20:50

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2 comments

Robert Blevins
05:30 Jul 23, 2020

A good vignette. A slice of a life. A few spellcheck misses don't detract from it.

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Lee Ferrell
22:23 Jul 22, 2020

Hi, you were a recommendation and I have to say I liked it a lot. I like that we’ll never know even if we could think of the answer we’d still never know. I love the details that you use and all I can say is I loved it.

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