A Warm Story for Cold Weather
When you see the immediate aftermath of a car crash in movies, there's always a bit of soundtrack in the background, tinkling urgently along to let you know the car's about 45 seconds away from going up in a big burp of flame and special effects.
It was summer, and the sun was hanging a bit behind the actual time, still barely throwing shadows even though we had stopped for lunch two hours ago. We'd gone through something like three, maybe four tanks of gas so far, staying on the road all night, talking past the point we got sick of each others voices and letting the road just flow through us like the cold coffee Jamie took black and I drank with less sugar each time we stopped for more.
It was like being on the docks again, this sun burning into arms we let hang out of open windows – I had driven since the first leg of our trip, a straight shot up to one of the Carolinas that hadn't taken more than 6 hours, but I'd had my left arm hanging out the window the entire time, tapping a beat to whatever Jamie put on, and, half watching my arm take up the radio's rhythm now, I could see that it was no darker than the rest of my body. We really were baked. Jamie was lighter than me, but I was sure, if he had dragged his arm back into the car, it would be just the same crisp color as the rest of his body.
The highway was two lane, and a line of slow motion seemed to run through the cars ahead of our own. They bunched, caught a whiff of uncertainty, and slowed as we started to climb a gentle rise. The sky was the sort you got on long car rides through South Georgia, which was about where we were, one of those sections where the real towns had been shriveling for the last million years. Someone had crashed into a drainage ditch a few car-lengths past us. The truck ahead of us blinked sunlight off fresh washed metal details as it slid left, and Jamie followed.
It was summer, and the sun was hanging a bit behind the actual time, still barely throwing shadows even though we had stopped for lunch two hours ago. We'd gone through something like three, maybe four tanks of gas so far, staying on the road all night, talking past the point we got sick of each others voices and letting the road just flow through us like the cold coffee Jamie took black and I drank with less sugar each time we stopped for more.
It was like being on the docks again, this sun burning into arms we let hang out of open windows – I had driven since the first leg of our trip, a straight shot up to one of the Carolinas that hadn't taken more than 6 hours, but I'd had my left arm hanging out the window the entire time, tapping a beat to whatever Jamie put on, and, half watching my arm take up the radio's rhythm now, I could see that it was no darker than the rest of my body. We really were baked. Jamie was lighter than me, but I was sure, if he had dragged his arm back into the car, it would be just the same crisp color as the rest of his body.
The highway was two lane, and a line of slow motion seemed to run through the cars ahead of our own. They bunched, caught a whiff of uncertainty, and slowed as we started to climb a gentle rise. The sky was the sort you got on long car rides through South Georgia, which was about where we were, one of those sections where the real towns had been shriveling for the last million years. Someone had crashed into a drainage ditch a few car-lengths past us. The truck ahead of us blinked sunlight off fresh washed metal details as it slid left, and Jamie followed.
posted by Fifth at 7:03 PM
2 Comments:
:)
Quick question. Should I use this sentence:
Someone had crashed into a drainage ditch a few car-lengths past us. The truck ahead of us blinked sunlight off fresh washed metal details as it slid left, and Jamie followed.
Or this one:
Someone had crashed ahead. The truck ahead of us blinked sunlight off fresh washed metal details as it slid left, and Jamie followed.
Or, rephrased:
how the hell do I avoid using two "ahead"s next to each other?
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