Transit Van
By cy
- 388 reads
I woke up under a big TV mast at about dawn, bruised, confused and
cold. When I finally mustered up the strength to stand up and look
across the rolling mist I could make out where the tail-lights of
commuter traffic on what looked to be a pretty serious stretch of
motorway.
Jesus, I was cold. It makes me cold just thinking about it. I remember
walking toward the road, looking forward to getting picked up by the
police or whoever and sitting in a warm car with its engine running,
with the hiss of the tyres to tell me that we were going somewhere,
just anywhere. It was so cold and the ghastly dawn light revealed the
countryside around me in shades of grey and white, all smudged together
under a layer of mist. I could feel the dim warmth of the sun as it
began to peek over the horizon.
I walked on for a bit, hearing the white noise of the motorway get
louder, counting my footsteps in my head just to keep me going, then I
stopped.
I had been down many, many motorways all over this country and I must
have driven a million miles. I remembered looking across at the other
drivers as we sped along, seeing their ghoulish, bored faces lit by
dashboard light. I remembered how every junction made me sick. How each
cat's eye pricked my nerves and how the look of the hard shoulder made
my guts ache. In reality there was only one motorway and no matter how
far or how long I drove, no matter how fast and no matter how expensive
the car, I always felt trapped on it. I had ripped through thousands of
miles of countryside at speed unimaginable 100 years ago, aerodynamic,
air-conditioned, CD, MiniDisk, sixteen fucking speakers, but I never
once had the guts to stop the car and to get out. Once I had raced off
the slip road it was the car the was driving me. Trapped. Acres and
acres of space all around me, and I was trapped inside a
leather-upholstered tin can. Trapped by the expensive car which I had
worked so hard to earn the right to drive. The technological
innovations, the concepts, the processes, the cutting-edge
'just-in-time' manufacturing all serving to stop me doing what I
wanted.
My feet were totally numb now. I looked down and didn't recognise them.
It seemed I was wearing army boots. Black, eight holes, not shiny, but
new. My suit trousers were caked in mud and tucked into my boots like
the grunts you see in army films. Jesus, I had lost my suit jacket and
my white shirt was filthy and soaked through. I think that my tie was
around my head. My hands were covered in small cuts and the fingernails
were black.
I set off again, shivering.
I reached the crash barrier at the edge of the motorway. It was grey
steel, ugly and sinister. I lifted one stiff leg over it, then another
and rested my weight on it for a moment.
Nobody was going to stop. The traffic was building and the smell of
exhaust poisoning the air was beautiful as hell. I took a big lungful
and blasted it back out, watching the plume of steam quickly disappear.
None of these people would ever stop - I could see they were all
trapped. I knew this. If one did stop I would run a mile. No way was I
going back to that.
Where the hell was my car? I put my hand in a trouser pocket and fished
out the BMW remote-control with the key attached. The key was bent in
the middle at a ninety-degree angle. It looked so great. I put it back
in my pocket, stood for a moment, then quickly pulled it out again and
threw it as far as I could across the lanes of traffic. It disappeared
between the cars and trucks without a trace.
I remembered that feeling I had as a kid when I jumped off a tree into
the river with y friends. Not the jump itself, not the anticipation,
and not the landing, but that moment when for an instant you realise
that you have done it and there is no turning back. Some kind of
terrible freedom.
That was the feeling I had when I realised that I was sprinting across
the first four lanes of motorway traffic. Silence all around me, just
the pounding of my heart and the cold air rasping through my lungs. I
felt like I was being pulled by a rope as I vaulted the central crash
barrier and my first footfall smashed on the tarmac.
Suddenly everything around me began to move again, really fast. The
sound of car horns was deafening and horrifying. Now I had to push. All
up to me now.
I knew I had to puke.
The point of no fucking return.
I shut my eyes and ran, wishing I could fly.
On the other side I stood doubled up at the waist, gasping for air and
retching violently. It felt like I wanted to puke out my lungs and the
front part of my brain. Nothing came out - just bitter bile and noise.
My skin prickled all over and my eyeballs hurt.
I glanced up to see what I had come through and immediately started to
vomit for real. I looked at the oncoming traffic and saw a van coming
up the hard-shoulder towards me. The Police.
The van didn't slow down though, just kept coming at me.
Fuck. I had made it all this way. I didn't even know why I had done it
and now I'm going to get it on the hard-shoulder, like a toad.
The white van seemed to be speeding up. This was definitely not the
police. I jumped for the crash barrier but something caught my jacket
from behind and tugged me back. I pushed away but now I was caught up
in the momentum of the van. I spun around and saw two arms and a face
pulling me into the darkness of the interior. I kicked and tried to
jump out.
I saw my face for a split-second in the wing mirror before they pulled
me in.
I was grinning like a madman.
To be continued...
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