Post by danni on Mar 16, 2007 21:59:30 GMT -5
This is a short original story featuring my OC, Sid. It was supposed to be a submission for the collection of anthro car stories at first, but I found I was unable to keep it under the maximum 1500 words without cutting parts, and I would rather leave my fiction unsevered, so instead I opted to post it here, should anyone want to read it.
---
Grey skies, cold wind, and an unpleasant drizzle that made everything damp, sticky, and even more chillier to the touch greeted him as he exited the building. He squinted, pulling his wheels in closer under his body to shield himself from the north wind that blew mercilessly against him and everything else.
Exhausted from a long day at work, the silver coloured SUV screwed up his courage and strength and pressed on against mother nature's onslaught. Perhaps the weather would have been easier to handle for someone who was not exhausted and running on very little sleep. Perhaps it would have been easier for someone who hadn't worked a ten hour shift with a half hour break at a giant corporate company, where the big dogs pushed you around, barked orders, and treated you like scum for the duration of the day. Perhaps it would be easier if he knew he was leaving this place, and not coming back.
Unfortunately, he was. Tomorrow, and the next day, and the day after that. You had to fill your gas tank, didn't you? And Hyundai Tuscons weren't exactly easy on fuel.
He drove through the main entrance/exit road that lead from the towering building, keeping his mind on his warm, safe garage, using the thoughts to rid himself of the unpleasant feeling of rapidly cooling metal, of harsh winds blowing mercilessly against the side of his body. He averted his eyes from the gazes of the other vehicles getting ready to leave. Some were alone, but most of them were in big, chatty groups of friendliness, laughing, and able to forget the cold, or at least complain to someone about it.
Sid half wished that it was snowing, then quickly changed his mind. Snow was, perhaps, easier on the body - it didn't ping roughly off of metal the way this driven rain was doing. But if it was cold enough for snow, it was cold enough for ice; maybe even black ice. He shuddered visibly at the thought, feeling paranoia creep into his wiring.
He felt his axles tighten, and tried not to lock his brakes, however much he wanted to just stop, and not move. If you didn't move, you couldn't slip on the ice. But he forced himself to press on, because there were cars behind him, and he was getting in the way. He inched slowly onto the main road, and pulled with difficulty into the traffic, his engine giving a nervous hiccup.
Winter was never fun. Granted, this was spring, but only because the calander said so. There was still a month or so left of bitter weather, here. And Sid had a phobia of two things. Ice, and crowds. And every day, he pulled out onto an icy road crammed with cars, and endured bumper to bumper traffic almost all the way home. Some days, he could handle it better than others. Some days, it was more of a normal fear than a phobia.
This was not one of those days. In front of him, a minivan blocked his path. Behind him, a pickup truck. And beside -- Oh, no -- a Smart Car! Sid offered what he hoped was a friendly smile, and the smart car offered nothing but a slight glance that was none too friendly. Sid quickly looked away. SUVs were getting less and less popular - they really weren't with the "in" crowd anymore, and he was painfully aware of it. His thoughts wandered as he drove, trying to take his mind off of this terrifying situation. Letting his mind go elsewhere was usually how he made it through the day, but, unfortunately, his thoughts often strayed into realms of the unpleasant.
It wasn't easy being an SUV with his personality. There was a bit of a racial divide amoungst automobiles, with environmentally friendly cars on one side, and SUVs and other gas guzzlers on the other. For the most part, the opinions that one side had against the other were well founded.
The environmentally friendly cars were just as the name suggested. Hybrids, diesels, cars run on ethanol, electric cars. Global warming was the next big scare, and they were the heroes doing their part to turn the titanic around, so to speak. But most of them neglected to remember that they did not choose their make, they were born that way. And they lorded their superiority over the other side of the vehicle divide. Most of them, anyway. Of course, there were always exceptions, but the louder and ruder personalities always got the most attention.
But the SUVs, for the most part, were unfazed by the environmentally friendly cars. After all, they were just tree huggers. They weren't any better than anyone else, as they would like the rest of the world to believe. What did it matter if you pumped out greenhouse gasses at on obscene rate every day? It's not like you could help it. They took great pride in their make, and the fact that, in winter months such as these, the cars that were so in tune with nature were left at the mercy of the ice and snow, while the SUVs, more often than not, could plow through it, or drive over it. It wasn't about being one with nature, that didn't get you anywhere. It was about beating it.
Unfortunately for Sid, he was not one of those SUVs. His favourite thing in the world was off-roading, but not in the sense of mud and water, and trenches, and plowing over saplings, and making new roads. More of a... passive approach. Being a Tuscon helped when one reached a bit of a tought spot, but for the most part, he enjoyed easy to travel roads that led to sandy, wild beaches, or forests full of chirping birds and squeaking animals. He found, that if you took the slow, quiet approach, you could see, hear, and do, so much more. But most SUVs made fun of him for such frivolities, telling him to move to the suburbs and stay off road, maybe start a family and become a soccor mom.
Neither side welcomed him, so Sid was stuck between the two fueding vehicle types, with no identity of his own, no group to welcome him, no one to familiarize with. He went to work alone, he spent the day at work talking to no one but customers, he drove home from work alone, and he spent the nights alone. He had once had someone to spend the nights with, but ...
His mind quickly averted itself from delving into that area. Thinking about that only caused him pain, and pushing it to the back of his mind was always the best thing he could do. He snapped back into reality, dazed for a moment, and he recoiled in horror as his front bumper came into contact, rather roughly, with the back bumper of the minivan in front of him.
"Hey!" snapped the van, who turned out to be male. Sid winced at the small dent he had left int he stranger's back end, but thanked Chrysler that he hadn't been pushed forward far enough to rear end the car that had been driving in front of him, too. That would have been the last thing he needed.
As was custom, the two of them pulled off the road, the minivan clearly fuming. Sid scuffed his tires in the dirt, eyes, as usual, averted, staring at the ground.
"I-I can pay for that," he stammered, quietly. Of course, he couldn't. He worked full time at a minimum wage job and paid for the bills, his insurance, and food. He rarely, if ever, had money to spend on anything else. But he knew the accident had been his fault, so perhaps he would have to open a line of credit, or maybe use less heat, or consume less fuel. He would have to pull it off, somehow.
The minivan seemed to calm at Sid's immediate surrender. Exchanging contact info, they parted; the minivan, who appeared to be an aggressive driver, pulling easily back into the flow of traffic. Sid's face fell even more. What had been easy for the vehicle he had rear ended was not going to be easy for him. He was never, ever good at pulling out into heavy traffic.
Inching slowly to the side of the road, the gravel and dirt of the roadside crunching beneath his winter tires, he waited for someone to let him in. It wasn't happening. He tried to stick his nose out, and was promptly honked at.
"Sorry..." he muttered, but the car was long gone.
After waiting in the freezing cold for who knows how long, he finally found a break in the traffic and scootched in, tears forming in his eyes, so upset was he over the whole situation. He must not have been paying attention, and a long, angry honk reached him from the car behind him, who just narrowly missed hitting him. He winced and said nothing, just drove passively, hoping their would not be another confrontation.
He could feel more tears building behind his eyes, and to his horror, a single tear slid down his hood and onto the pavement, leaving a clearly visible line of moisture. He cried so easily, these days. Perhaps because he had no one to express his frustrations to, perhaps because he felt so alienated. Either way, he did, and he was ashamed of it. He felt himself go weak, and a panic rise in his body, his RPMs rising even though he was moving slowly, his engine rasping with anxiety. What if someone saw?
His eyes darted this way and that, and he knew he was going to panic, he was panicking. There were cars all around him, rapidly icing cement beneath his tires, and another tear had slipped down his hood without permission.
As if by some miracle, Sid noticed a gap in the traffic, and, even more surprisingly, a trail that led into the woods that surrounded the highway, that he had never noticed before. He pulled, for once without incident, out of the traffic, and headed into the woods.
At first, the trail was rough, and he was thankful that he was an SUV, otherwise he would have gotten stuck. He made it past the rough spot, onto an easier, smoother part of the trail, and stopped. The panic was still raw, and he tried to breathe deeply to rid himself of it, but he couldn't. It had to come out.
He leaned against a tree, a small sprinkling of pine needles covering him as the sobs escaped him. For a long time he just parked there, releasing all his pent up misery and frustration. Even in the confines of the forest, he felt the need to keep himself quiet, however many tears he spilled.
Who knows, he might have stayed there all night, had not the sound of a flock of songbirds reached him. Opening his eyes and blinking away the tears, a small smile lit up his face when he spotted red breasted robins flitting in and out of a bare bush, and skuttling accross the ground, pecking through the snow, searching for food. A certain sign that spring was approaching.
He watched them silently for a long time, not daring to move and frighten them away. When they departed on their own time, Sid was pleasantly surprised to find that the rain had stopped filtering through the canopy, and was replaced with sunlight. His smile grew, and he tilted his body backwards to peer through the treetops. The clouds had parted, and the sun was out, however low in the sky it hung at this time of the day.
Starting his engine, he moved along the trail. His sadness spent and gone, he started to notice more small signs of the changing seasons. Here and there, amoung the tree roots, grass was growing. The icicles that had clung so stubbornly to the tree branches for six months of freezing temperatures were starting to melt away.
Any thoughts of getting home, or work the next day, or hassles on the road, fluttered from his mind and were forgotten as he took in the beauty that surrounded him. From a treetop, an angry squirrel berated him for invading his territory, and Sid chuckled and moved along. After what seemed like half an hour of driving, he came to a gap in the trees, and exited into what appeared to be a clearing.
He gasped when he realized that he had made it to the top of some kind of cliff, and as he drove to meet the sky, he could see the entire forest stretch out before him. Even though the wind was bitter cold, the rain had stopped, and the sun fought with the cold for dominion over the seasons, warming him slightly. The image before him was lovely, and he thanked the world for being so harsh on him today, because if it hadn't been, he would have never discovered this wonderful spot. And he tucked the image away in his mind, and promised himself he would return, because he needed to see it when the buds returned, and he needed to see it when the leaves were full, and green, and he needed to see it when fall came, and everything was painted with yellows, ambers, reds, and oranges.
The biting wind forced him to turn around, and head back home. The traffic had died down, and he pulled onto the highway with ease, just as the sun was setting. Flicking on his headlights, he made his way to his garage, and slept soundly for the first time in months.
---
Grey skies, cold wind, and an unpleasant drizzle that made everything damp, sticky, and even more chillier to the touch greeted him as he exited the building. He squinted, pulling his wheels in closer under his body to shield himself from the north wind that blew mercilessly against him and everything else.
Exhausted from a long day at work, the silver coloured SUV screwed up his courage and strength and pressed on against mother nature's onslaught. Perhaps the weather would have been easier to handle for someone who was not exhausted and running on very little sleep. Perhaps it would have been easier for someone who hadn't worked a ten hour shift with a half hour break at a giant corporate company, where the big dogs pushed you around, barked orders, and treated you like scum for the duration of the day. Perhaps it would be easier if he knew he was leaving this place, and not coming back.
Unfortunately, he was. Tomorrow, and the next day, and the day after that. You had to fill your gas tank, didn't you? And Hyundai Tuscons weren't exactly easy on fuel.
He drove through the main entrance/exit road that lead from the towering building, keeping his mind on his warm, safe garage, using the thoughts to rid himself of the unpleasant feeling of rapidly cooling metal, of harsh winds blowing mercilessly against the side of his body. He averted his eyes from the gazes of the other vehicles getting ready to leave. Some were alone, but most of them were in big, chatty groups of friendliness, laughing, and able to forget the cold, or at least complain to someone about it.
Sid half wished that it was snowing, then quickly changed his mind. Snow was, perhaps, easier on the body - it didn't ping roughly off of metal the way this driven rain was doing. But if it was cold enough for snow, it was cold enough for ice; maybe even black ice. He shuddered visibly at the thought, feeling paranoia creep into his wiring.
He felt his axles tighten, and tried not to lock his brakes, however much he wanted to just stop, and not move. If you didn't move, you couldn't slip on the ice. But he forced himself to press on, because there were cars behind him, and he was getting in the way. He inched slowly onto the main road, and pulled with difficulty into the traffic, his engine giving a nervous hiccup.
Winter was never fun. Granted, this was spring, but only because the calander said so. There was still a month or so left of bitter weather, here. And Sid had a phobia of two things. Ice, and crowds. And every day, he pulled out onto an icy road crammed with cars, and endured bumper to bumper traffic almost all the way home. Some days, he could handle it better than others. Some days, it was more of a normal fear than a phobia.
This was not one of those days. In front of him, a minivan blocked his path. Behind him, a pickup truck. And beside -- Oh, no -- a Smart Car! Sid offered what he hoped was a friendly smile, and the smart car offered nothing but a slight glance that was none too friendly. Sid quickly looked away. SUVs were getting less and less popular - they really weren't with the "in" crowd anymore, and he was painfully aware of it. His thoughts wandered as he drove, trying to take his mind off of this terrifying situation. Letting his mind go elsewhere was usually how he made it through the day, but, unfortunately, his thoughts often strayed into realms of the unpleasant.
It wasn't easy being an SUV with his personality. There was a bit of a racial divide amoungst automobiles, with environmentally friendly cars on one side, and SUVs and other gas guzzlers on the other. For the most part, the opinions that one side had against the other were well founded.
The environmentally friendly cars were just as the name suggested. Hybrids, diesels, cars run on ethanol, electric cars. Global warming was the next big scare, and they were the heroes doing their part to turn the titanic around, so to speak. But most of them neglected to remember that they did not choose their make, they were born that way. And they lorded their superiority over the other side of the vehicle divide. Most of them, anyway. Of course, there were always exceptions, but the louder and ruder personalities always got the most attention.
But the SUVs, for the most part, were unfazed by the environmentally friendly cars. After all, they were just tree huggers. They weren't any better than anyone else, as they would like the rest of the world to believe. What did it matter if you pumped out greenhouse gasses at on obscene rate every day? It's not like you could help it. They took great pride in their make, and the fact that, in winter months such as these, the cars that were so in tune with nature were left at the mercy of the ice and snow, while the SUVs, more often than not, could plow through it, or drive over it. It wasn't about being one with nature, that didn't get you anywhere. It was about beating it.
Unfortunately for Sid, he was not one of those SUVs. His favourite thing in the world was off-roading, but not in the sense of mud and water, and trenches, and plowing over saplings, and making new roads. More of a... passive approach. Being a Tuscon helped when one reached a bit of a tought spot, but for the most part, he enjoyed easy to travel roads that led to sandy, wild beaches, or forests full of chirping birds and squeaking animals. He found, that if you took the slow, quiet approach, you could see, hear, and do, so much more. But most SUVs made fun of him for such frivolities, telling him to move to the suburbs and stay off road, maybe start a family and become a soccor mom.
Neither side welcomed him, so Sid was stuck between the two fueding vehicle types, with no identity of his own, no group to welcome him, no one to familiarize with. He went to work alone, he spent the day at work talking to no one but customers, he drove home from work alone, and he spent the nights alone. He had once had someone to spend the nights with, but ...
His mind quickly averted itself from delving into that area. Thinking about that only caused him pain, and pushing it to the back of his mind was always the best thing he could do. He snapped back into reality, dazed for a moment, and he recoiled in horror as his front bumper came into contact, rather roughly, with the back bumper of the minivan in front of him.
"Hey!" snapped the van, who turned out to be male. Sid winced at the small dent he had left int he stranger's back end, but thanked Chrysler that he hadn't been pushed forward far enough to rear end the car that had been driving in front of him, too. That would have been the last thing he needed.
As was custom, the two of them pulled off the road, the minivan clearly fuming. Sid scuffed his tires in the dirt, eyes, as usual, averted, staring at the ground.
"I-I can pay for that," he stammered, quietly. Of course, he couldn't. He worked full time at a minimum wage job and paid for the bills, his insurance, and food. He rarely, if ever, had money to spend on anything else. But he knew the accident had been his fault, so perhaps he would have to open a line of credit, or maybe use less heat, or consume less fuel. He would have to pull it off, somehow.
The minivan seemed to calm at Sid's immediate surrender. Exchanging contact info, they parted; the minivan, who appeared to be an aggressive driver, pulling easily back into the flow of traffic. Sid's face fell even more. What had been easy for the vehicle he had rear ended was not going to be easy for him. He was never, ever good at pulling out into heavy traffic.
Inching slowly to the side of the road, the gravel and dirt of the roadside crunching beneath his winter tires, he waited for someone to let him in. It wasn't happening. He tried to stick his nose out, and was promptly honked at.
"Sorry..." he muttered, but the car was long gone.
After waiting in the freezing cold for who knows how long, he finally found a break in the traffic and scootched in, tears forming in his eyes, so upset was he over the whole situation. He must not have been paying attention, and a long, angry honk reached him from the car behind him, who just narrowly missed hitting him. He winced and said nothing, just drove passively, hoping their would not be another confrontation.
He could feel more tears building behind his eyes, and to his horror, a single tear slid down his hood and onto the pavement, leaving a clearly visible line of moisture. He cried so easily, these days. Perhaps because he had no one to express his frustrations to, perhaps because he felt so alienated. Either way, he did, and he was ashamed of it. He felt himself go weak, and a panic rise in his body, his RPMs rising even though he was moving slowly, his engine rasping with anxiety. What if someone saw?
His eyes darted this way and that, and he knew he was going to panic, he was panicking. There were cars all around him, rapidly icing cement beneath his tires, and another tear had slipped down his hood without permission.
As if by some miracle, Sid noticed a gap in the traffic, and, even more surprisingly, a trail that led into the woods that surrounded the highway, that he had never noticed before. He pulled, for once without incident, out of the traffic, and headed into the woods.
At first, the trail was rough, and he was thankful that he was an SUV, otherwise he would have gotten stuck. He made it past the rough spot, onto an easier, smoother part of the trail, and stopped. The panic was still raw, and he tried to breathe deeply to rid himself of it, but he couldn't. It had to come out.
He leaned against a tree, a small sprinkling of pine needles covering him as the sobs escaped him. For a long time he just parked there, releasing all his pent up misery and frustration. Even in the confines of the forest, he felt the need to keep himself quiet, however many tears he spilled.
Who knows, he might have stayed there all night, had not the sound of a flock of songbirds reached him. Opening his eyes and blinking away the tears, a small smile lit up his face when he spotted red breasted robins flitting in and out of a bare bush, and skuttling accross the ground, pecking through the snow, searching for food. A certain sign that spring was approaching.
He watched them silently for a long time, not daring to move and frighten them away. When they departed on their own time, Sid was pleasantly surprised to find that the rain had stopped filtering through the canopy, and was replaced with sunlight. His smile grew, and he tilted his body backwards to peer through the treetops. The clouds had parted, and the sun was out, however low in the sky it hung at this time of the day.
Starting his engine, he moved along the trail. His sadness spent and gone, he started to notice more small signs of the changing seasons. Here and there, amoung the tree roots, grass was growing. The icicles that had clung so stubbornly to the tree branches for six months of freezing temperatures were starting to melt away.
Any thoughts of getting home, or work the next day, or hassles on the road, fluttered from his mind and were forgotten as he took in the beauty that surrounded him. From a treetop, an angry squirrel berated him for invading his territory, and Sid chuckled and moved along. After what seemed like half an hour of driving, he came to a gap in the trees, and exited into what appeared to be a clearing.
He gasped when he realized that he had made it to the top of some kind of cliff, and as he drove to meet the sky, he could see the entire forest stretch out before him. Even though the wind was bitter cold, the rain had stopped, and the sun fought with the cold for dominion over the seasons, warming him slightly. The image before him was lovely, and he thanked the world for being so harsh on him today, because if it hadn't been, he would have never discovered this wonderful spot. And he tucked the image away in his mind, and promised himself he would return, because he needed to see it when the buds returned, and he needed to see it when the leaves were full, and green, and he needed to see it when fall came, and everything was painted with yellows, ambers, reds, and oranges.
The biting wind forced him to turn around, and head back home. The traffic had died down, and he pulled onto the highway with ease, just as the sun was setting. Flicking on his headlights, he made his way to his garage, and slept soundly for the first time in months.
