The sky loomed above me like the shadows cast by an owl’s outstretched wings as it swoops down upon some hapless rodent,
the frenzied anxiety bubbling up in the pit of my stomach screeched avian obscenities as I scrambled my paws against the accelerator pedal and sent myself roaring off towards my final, powdery excrement coated destination.
Could I outrun my terror? Would it tire and give up the chase after a few 120MPH stretches over straight, empty road? Or was a fear like this just too huge, too old and archetypal ever to shake by any means other than direct
confrontation? I decided to keep the direct confrontation route on file under “Plan B” and set about instead putting as much distance between myself and well, myself, for want of a better term, as was physically possible, with the promise of an extra few miles on top just for good luck.
The landscape was becoming less defined as time went on, bush blurring gradually into bush as my speed climbed steadily upwards and the raspberry conserve of images was spread more and more thinly across the warm, buttery croissant of my soul.
“Would you care for any more scenery Mr. Linton?” The waiters would simper, but no, I would shake my head and tell them “Oh no, I’m on a diet, trying to watch my voyeuristic intake, like the celebrities do.” I mean, really? I’ve got places to go and people to meet, what good’s a life so free of care if all I do is stop and stare?
See, I’ve heard it on
pretty good authority that there’s a pretty big world out there, though I’ve yet to encounter it myself, and that it’s actually got quite a lot to offer. I figured just once, before I die and find that everything’s all over, I ought to go out and try to hold life to all the wild, drunken promises she’s made. Find out if there really is a truth and beauty and magic to everything that like a magic eye puzzle you’ve got to squint just the right way to see, or if like the wind and the waves against the rocks and even the nagging shrieks of my feathered companion she was just all talk the whole time.
Just one wild, thundering, all or nothing trip to paradise or the gutter, I’d put my life and my safe, cosy little world with all it’s deja vus and everyday heartbreaks on the line, but if the stake was my life and the wager was that that life was worth living there was no way for me to lose, only to find out that I’d lost years ago, and that I already suspected.