The headlights in front of the car were slim, white beams surrounded by darkness. The narrow vision and the speed gave Rebecca a heady thrill. It reminded her of when she was a child and she would run through the woods with paper towel rolls tied over her eyes like binoculars.
She felt invincible.
Rebecca’s car straddled the double line. Her foot lay heavily on the gas pedal. She was not running away — just seeking a momentary escape. Just an hour or two alone with her thoughts and her music. Rebecca cranked the stereo up for her favorite song.
She knew she was driving too fast for a narrow country road at night. Mist obscured her view as she swerved around blind corners. But she doubted she’d see anyone on this road at two in the morning. It was autumn and all children would be asleep in their beds. Throw caution to the wind!
Suddenly, a white patch of white fur skittered across the road in front of her car. Rebecca accelerated and held the steering wheel steady. The front wheel thumped as the rabbit hit the bumper. The sound jolted her.
Rebecca drove on for another hundred meters until she found a driveway to turn around in. She was horrified by her own reaction. Had she hit the rabbit on purpose? What scared her most was the rush of satisfaction she had felt the instant the car had hit the rabbit.
She slowed the car as she neared the site of the accident. Her headlights glimmered on the red smeared asphalt. It was a moment before she saw the body. She turned off the stereo.
The rabbit was not dead.
She had broken its lower spine. The rabbit was now clawing across the road toward the ditch, dragging its limp legs behind. It was bleeding to death. She would have to drive over the rabbit again to put it out of its misery.
Although she was ashamed, Rebecca could not bring herself to do it. Nor could she bring herself to stop and get out of the car.
She merely drove slowly on.
The brake lights made the road behind her glow red. She did not look behind, but instead fixed her eyes on the slim, white lights in front.
Emanuella Martin graduated from California State University, Chico with a degree in journalism. She has written feature stories for the Chico News & Review, The Orion, and for KCHO, the local public radio station. One of her cover stories for CN&R took 14th place in the National Hearst Feature Writing Competition. She is now living in New Jersey with her husband and working on her first novel.
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15 Responses to “ROAD KILL • by Emanuella Martin”
Comments
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April 21st, 2009 at 2:39 am
I am horrified. Full marks to you Emmanuella, the story teller!
April 21st, 2009 at 4:09 am
Oooooooo, nasty…and I like it! This is a dark, little look into the inner workings of an angry woman. “Rebecca accelerated and held the steering wheel steady.” That line tells me everything I need to know about the character. My advice: Therapy. Lots of it.
April 21st, 2009 at 4:13 am
A really thought provocing short story. I’m reminded of my years of driving to work through the countryside in the wee hours of the morning…needless to say that birds, cats and even a raccoon fell victim to my tires (yes, it still bothers me). Great job, Emanuella.
April 21st, 2009 at 4:41 am
Brutal and horrible are the effects of anger and rage. Even submerged anger, controlled rage. Excellent writing! A five from me for sure.
April 21st, 2009 at 5:43 am
Ya..feel was not good but the writing surely was..liked it.
April 21st, 2009 at 5:49 am
Terrific.
April 21st, 2009 at 6:05 am
I’m not seeing anger or rage; thrill-seeking, indifference, ennui perhaps.
A few instances of trite or awkward phrasing mar the piece – “slim, white beams surrounded by darkness”, “a white patch of white fur”. One more edit would probably have taken care of them.
Overall, a nice character study centered around a small moment. Well done.
April 21st, 2009 at 7:03 am
Well done, but I wish I could know more about why she was speeding down a dark road at that hour alone. Why did she seek escape? It might make her brutality a bit clearer.
April 21st, 2009 at 7:15 am
Very sensitive and well written story of a “merely playing” woman with blinders on and worriless and careless, who suddenly is brought up against an event which scares her, “She was horrified by her own reaction…What scared her most was the rush of satisfaction she had felt the instant the car had hit the rabbit,” as if it was a game. The event makes her aware of her own self-unapproved reactions. The mutilation of the rabbit, involving “only” an animal, would scarcely be noticed or commented on in our human world, would not bring blame to her, yet it is a momentous horror to a suffering animal and to herself who nevertheless merely moves on, running from the ensuing dilemma of facing the responsibility of putting the rabbit out of misery. But she does then start using her brakes, “The brake lights made the road behind her glow red.”
Unusually well thought out concept, fine writing.
April 21st, 2009 at 7:15 am
A short short story (vs a long short story?) that has impact usually has to end abruptly and evoke a strong, believable response. This did. Nice job.
April 21st, 2009 at 5:31 pm
Wow. Great story!
April 21st, 2009 at 9:22 pm
Would she have felt and done the same had it not been an animal? Inescapably powerful story.
April 22nd, 2009 at 12:46 pm
Great story! Very powerful, reminds me of William Stafford’s poem “Travelling Through the Dark.” I’m particularly struck by the sonnet-like turn. Rebecca hits the animal, pulls over, turns around, and stops by the rabbit. Then she continues on in the direction she came from – back towards home, or the source of her flight. Literally and figuratively, this speaks volumes about her choices, her mind-set, her methods of dealing with whatever impelled and provoked her night drive, her temporary escape. We wonder what she was doing alone on a country road at night, driving with no sense of purpose except the sensual act of driving and the feeling of freedom it gives her. That alone moves the story from the level of the individual to a collective level, one that all readers can identify with, the myth of the American road. This story is about flight, and the writer’s even-handed treatment imbues each detail with vibrancy and meaning. The rabbit is symbolic of life, of movement and especially of the ability to run, to make choices about when and where to run. The rabbit’s death intensifies those symbologies. Rebecca’s impulse to accelerate is instinctual, the fight part of fight or flight response. She meets the encounter at speed, and again, she turns to revisit the source of the conflict, just as she drives back the way she came. The important part here is that she can’t face what she has done, though she did it on purpose. She can’t follow through, can’t bring herself to kill, and she leaves the rabbit injured, assuming injury on herself in the process. We don’t know if this is simple weakness, or indicative of the reason for her drive, because we don’t know what she is escaping, or why. The rabbit’s (understood) death becomes the story’s motif, the point at which all action, real or imagined, resolves. The rabbit, still alive but gruesomely mangled, continues on in the white headlights illuminating the road, fully in Rebecca’s vision, just as it is in the reader’s. I read this not so much as a mortality tale, but as a life-affirming story that connects thought to action, life to death, confinement to freedom, choice to responsibility. Read as such, it raises more questions that it answers. The physical and emotional pain in this story isn’t pretty, but it does make you think.
April 23rd, 2009 at 7:33 am
Jason Weeks – I read and re-read your comment with great interest. But I don’t think the speeding was necessarily caused by a wish to escape. I once did something similar (in the daytime, without hitting any life) because I could not spend the day in the house with those with whom I was living. I was ashamed of not having a job, and because of reasons which could not be discussed with them at the time, I could not then search for one. I was too ashamed to sit visibly idle at “home” where the parking was free, had no money to waste, and couldn’t afford parking space. The speeding was more a careless despondency in an emptiness in a world of expensive parking.
To me, the cause of the speeding in this story is irrelevant. The emphasis is on the sensitizing of the protaganist to the need of caution and precaution regarding unforeseen dangers from both within and without. In this story the rueful image of the mangled rabbit will always remain with her as a reminder to maintain constrained self-possession.
April 29th, 2009 at 4:28 pm
Thank you everyone for your comments. Thank you, Roberta SchulbergGoro especially, for your insight and deeply considered comments.
It is magical to be able to reach into the world and touch someone’s life for just a moment. Getting feedback for my work has been incredibly assuring.
Thank you all.