Captainkirk's Duster project
.....You were too fast to live; too young to die, Bye Bye.
Eagles, On The Border
Gradually, like waking up on a Saturday morning after sleeping in, I became aware of my surroundings. I don't really think I was out, perhaps just in shock? Anyway, the first thing I noticed was that I was alive and not in a lot of pain. That was a Good Thing. The second thing I noticed was that I couldn't see; my glasses were gone. It was unearthly quiet; like when you're sitting in the woods, and suddenly you become aware of a cacauphony of noises in the background that were really there all along. I became aware of the hissing of a ruptured radiator; mortally skewered like a jousting knight who has just received his comeuppance. I could smell the sweet smell of glycol and taste it in the steam that drifted in through the driver's window, which had disappeared as if by magic. Hell, I could see the steam in the glare from the one remaining headlight, which glared out at the treetops in a fantastic absurd angle; a mortally wounded cyclops on it's deathbed. I reached over and switched off the light switch.
The door didn't open at first. Once, twice, three times with my shoulder, and it grudgingly popped open. Gingerly, I unbuckled the lap belt and stepped out of the car.
The engine was pinging and ticking, shedding the heat from it's death-gauntlet like a mortally wounded animal, green blood pooling beneath it. In the full moon's light I could see the huge buckle in the hood, the scoop I'd labored so hard on cracked and peeled back. It was then I noticed the telephone pole leaning crazily to one side, wires drooping low like the clothesline of a fat man, loaded with wet laundry. Things were not looking so hot at the moment.
I reached back inside and rummaged around in the glovebox for my flashlight. Finding it, I switched it on and searched for my glasses. I finally found them, twisted and bent, between the passenger door and the seat, on the floor. They'd hit the windshield and cracked it on the way to their new burrow. I twisted and bent them enough to make them somewhat fit. Then I surveyed the damage.
It was a mortal wound; you could just tell. Like in the movies when the medic tells the sarge; "Aw, it's just a scratch...you'll be up and around in no time!"
You can't bullshit the old Sarge. "Tell my wife....(whatever) and hug little Timmy for me......." Then he sighs, closes his eyes and rolls his head. You couldn't bullshit me either. If this was a quarterhorse, I'd be tenderly pressing the muzzle of my .44 against her head. They shoot horses, don't they?
I spied the unopened Refreshments in the back seat. Well, they were unopened. I sat down in the ditch on the wet, dewy grass and popped one open.
Two Beers appeared out of nowhere. "Hell of a thing, eh?"
Shove off, mate.
"Suit yourself."
Alone again, I polished off the beer, chucked the can in the ditch and opened another. And then I did what any other full-grown, testosterone-stoked, musclecar-building Sonofabiscuitmaker would do.....I broke down and sobbed like a freakin' baby.