Leftover from the rain, a flock of water beads turned in unison and scooted across the windshield. Free in the wind, they probably spattered onto the speeding car coming up behind me.
The red sports car flashed its lights on and off then came around. The driver gave me the finger and I gave him a blank stare. He sped off and I dug my nails into the vinyl steering wheel.
Seconds later, brake lights up ahead forced me to slow down. A tumbleweed of debris puffed over the horizon. The sports car was not moving when it came into view again, but everything around it was: people, tires, air.
The man who flipped me off had veered into the grass median, missed oncoming traffic, and catapulted off the opposite shoulder of the road. A burly pine tree proved stronger and more resilient than his automobile. I’d seen nothing more than a flash of mirrored sunglasses when he raced by. How he measured me, I’ll never know.
I rolled by the accident at a creep but didn’t look. I knew that he was gone; just a smudge on the road that he’d been in such a hurry to travel.
If he had landed on my side of the highway, I would have gotten out. It’s doubtful he would have been in any state to apologize, but there really wouldn’t have been any reason to. Things don’t seem to matter once they spatter all over what’s behind us.
Danielle Thorne writes novels and short fiction from south of Atlanta, Georgia. Visit her at www.geocities.com/danithorne/authorsbio or www.myspace.com/daniellethorne.
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7 Responses to “SMUDGE • by Danielle Thorne”
Comments
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August 16th, 2008 at 4:37 am
This story strikes so many of my nerves that it’s making my blood pressure rise. It should be required reading in the Jerk Driver Afterlife, with a little imp dancing around and yelling, “Told you so! Told you so!”
August 16th, 2008 at 5:54 am
Nice.
August 16th, 2008 at 11:10 am
Short and sweet, Danielle.
It brought to mind every idiot, in-a-hurry, self-important,it’s-all-and-only-about-me-A.-H., that speeds along indifferent to the rest of us.
Oh, and that the car was red…yeah, God’s way of telling the rest of us an idiot’s driving that one.
–dj
August 16th, 2008 at 11:10 am
Very powerful.
Cheers
Mark
August 18th, 2008 at 8:12 am
Oof, this happened to me once. We did stop, but no one in the other car survived. Not pretty.
August 19th, 2008 at 1:09 pm
Brilliant. I love a happy ending
August 23rd, 2008 at 12:31 am
Hey Dani, Good to see your story here, congrats! This is a strong story told in such a short space, neat and well done.
I felt it could have ended at “just a smudge on the road that he’d been in such a hurry to travel.” and still had the same impact. But the last line ties in with the beginning, so it feels more complete, perhaps.