An idea I had. (574 hits)
Category: Quotes & StoriesRating: 1.71 on 7 reviews (Rate this item) (V)
Submitted by Chris (View user info) at 2004-11-15 05:04:01 EST
Untitled
The red sports car moved at a blistering speed, fast enough to make the vehicles on the freeway appear motionless.
The driver sneered and twitched, his body sprawled low in a black leather seat. His hair was carefully carved into a cemetery, and the hair product had begun to flake. He blared confidence.
The car shot through implausible gaps. Drivers grimaced and shot to their brakes; a few gasped and a few shouted, and the driver of a tanker truck blared his horn.
Gray seeped up between cracks in the freeway. The sports car steering wheel slipped between the driver's palm, turning gently then wildly clockwise.
The scene was over in seconds, and the freeway lit up with red brake lights. The sports car hit a rail and began to roll and jump energetically in the air, lifting a cloud of gray dust. Glass rained from the gray cloud and a bumper slid through a limousine window.
The sports car driver's torso was spread over a glistening 45-foot maroon trail. His Rolex and his faux vintage shirt adorned his arm 20 feet off the freeway bank.
The sports car driver's girlfriend sat in a dim yellow room with a mug of Smirnoff in her hand and an unlit cigarette balanced on her ear. She caught her reflection in the television black between commercials, repulsed by her protruding abdomen. She was dizzy and sweating on the black leather sofa. She pulled the cigarette off her ear and placed it in her mouth. The room was full of gray smoke, more smoke than the cigarettes she'd drained earlier. She lit a match and the gray smoke thickened.
The scene was over in seconds, and the room had lit up with a sports car advertisement. The girl hunched over. She was lifeless, as was her unborn child.
Eleven hours later the president was shot three times in the chest and once in the thigh by a black man who swallowed the pistol afterwards. The capitol was overcast. The Weather Channel went offline due to the national emergency after a day of reporting rain across the United States. The freeways were motionless.
"I've never seen anything like it," moaned a widow through sloppy tears. "I have never, ever seen anything like it." She couldn't keep the phone against her ear, and the battery was dying. A body was smoldering in the skeleton of an office complex, and the firemen were thankful for the rain.
Within a week, every despotic regime had collapsed, and nearly every standing government had applied martial law. The quiet was disconcerting; casinos were pillaged and slot machines watched without a chirp; shopping malls were silent save for resonating chords of wind. A group of World War II veterans strolled placid streets, optimistic despite the nostalgic stench of the dead pouring from every window. The strongest living pulled cartloads of deceased to ditches and gorges, to cliffs guarding the Atlantic Ocean.
Trees swayed thankfully in the breeze, and gulls called back and forth to each other. In a suburb, squirrels built a home in a kitchen cabinet. The house no longer had owners capable of shooing them out.
Collapsed mosques in southern Saudi Arabia became stores of food. The unveiled women accumulated canned goods and bread, though nothing manufactured would last very long.
The remaining Ogoni people cautiously explored the vacant halls of Shell Nigeria, terrified. Two brothers jumped up and dropped their oil lamp at a startling sound. A kingfisher was building her nest under a computer console, and the boys laughed.
Lawns no longer resembled lawns; vacant cities resembled movie sets awaiting actors. At three weeks the clouds began to break and puddles of blue marched across through the sky.
User Reviews
Submitted by Jeanneee (user info) at 2004-11-15 10:28:54 EST (#)
Ranking: 2
+2 +2 +2 +2 +2 +2
Submitted by Adamdidit2u (user info) at 2004-11-15 10:17:04 EST (#)
Ranking: 2
death and destruction always make me smile
Submitted by IamNotTheWorldTradeCenter (user info) at 2004-11-15 09:37:48 EST (#)
Ranking: 2
spiritual revolution
Submitted by DanielH (user info) at 2004-11-15 09:14:42 EST (#)
Ranking: 2
No Comment
Submitted by apollo88 (user info) at 2004-11-15 06:26:52 EST (#)
Ranking: 0
what happened?
Submitted by Siren (user info) at 2004-11-15 05:51:49 EST (#)
Ranking: 2
Well written.
Submitted by krootons (user info) at 2004-11-15 05:12:14 EST (#)
Ranking: 2
No Comment