Mindset Ch. 1

The sleek lines of his car sliced through the night with frightening ease, its engines throaty rumble filling the cab with its resonance. The smell of gasoline reached his nostrils as the powerful vehicle lobed down the once quiet street. Not a few lights were turned on at his passing, curses about neurotic teenagers on the lips of the recently slumbering residents. Just warming her up, he thought, you aint heard nothing yet. So it was, following no clear path, but drawing inexorably closer to the freeway and its wide open spaces. Finally the gauge he had been anxiously watching indicated what he had been watching for. He ran his eyes over the various readouts that were the soliloquy of his engine, and he felt the small of his back, pressed firmly into the racing seat and held there by his five point harness, tighten with anticipation. His eyes lit up as he goosed the gas peddle, hearing the symphony of eight cylinders all firing perfectly, timed and synchronized for the ultimate showing of power and speed. He felt his cars suspension compensate for the curves of the on-ramp, then he hit open road. Johnny grinned. This was his favorite part.
Down shifting from third to second gear, he was slammed into his seat. The turbo’s shrieked in delight as they forced compressed air into the chambers at twelve pounds per square inch, launching the car from 30 miles per hour to 60 in less time it took to say it. He worked through the gears until he was tearing down the highway at 140 miles per hour, where his engine lacked the power to move the car any faster. That is when he uncovered and flipped an innocent seeming switch, caution yellow, on his dash. The grin that had been on Johnnies face turned into an outright smile when the engine’s strained growls was wrenched into a tormented scream. The speedometer stopped at 200 miles per hour, but Johnny didn’t. Johnny was going fast, really fast.
* * *
A wall of grey water filled Johnnies vision as the torrential rain of Texas reared it’s terrifically majestic head. A hazy line drew itself across the landscape. On one side huge drops of rain pounded unmercifully onto the pavement, gathering in pools to mix with the oil that had been collecting throughout the day from its passing fare of vehicles. On the other side was the calmness of a warm summer night. Johnny was headed straight for it. He could not turn, he could not stop, he could not slow down, but even as he entered the rain that beat the drum of his death march, he could not stop smiling.
Johnny felt the front end of the car begin to drift to the right, so using all the skill he possessed in his slender yet strong hand, he corrected ever so slightly to the left to compensate. Nothing happened. At the speed his vehicle was traveling, his tires were not even in contact with the pavement. The mix of oil and water created a surface just as deadly as ice and Johnnie’s car skimmed over the top of it. He let his foot off the gas and depressed the clutch pedal. Placing the gear shift into fifth, he eased the clutch back out, hoping to use the engine to help slow him down without losing control, the sure result if he attempted to use his brakes. He had been at the extremes of his transmissions sixth gear and even the slight drop to fifth was too much.
The rear wheels began to churn far slower than the pavement moving beneath them and the front end’s drifting whipped out the beck end of the car with a violent twist. The tires, now moving in a direction that they had never been designed to, caught on the pavement, sending the car flipping into the air. The miracle of landing once again right side up was quickly forgotten as the vehicle continued it’s far from graceful tumble down the water strewn highway. It had rotated well over a dozen times by the time it came sliding to a stop on its battered and half collapsed roof.
Johnny hung upside down, suspending by his harness. The roll cage had prevented the roof from completely caving on itself and that had saved him from being crushed by the weight of the car. Johnnie’s body was encompassed by searing pain, coming from nowhere and everywhere at once. The steering wheel had pinned his legs to the seat, so he gripped it and using strength he didn’t know he had he wrenched the twisted column away from his legs. Blood ran into his eyes but he didn’t know where it was coming from. The red that blurred his vision was quickly fading to black. Johnnie’s last act of consciousness was to unclasp his harness. He heard a distant thud as his head slammed into the roof of the car, ending his struggle, ending the cognizance of his pain, pushing him into oblivion.