Phobic

I stared through the windscreen, my heart was beating fast, too fast, an irregular tattoo of bumps and thuds pounding against my ribcage. Almost deafened by the gushing, sporadic pulse in my ears.

I held the steering wheel in a death grip, hands twitching and shaking, arms rigid, muscles solid.

I felt the sweat begin to trickle through my hair, dampening my scalp, soaking it through, plastering my hair to my head, weaving its way down my already clammy forehead, dripping from my eyebrows and nose.
It cascaded from the back of my head, running down the nape of my neck, soaking my collar.
My shirt drenched wet at armpits, back, and chest.
It streamed down my spine, puddling on the car seat, and trickling to the floor.

My mouth was dry, arid, my tongue a lifeless leathery slug stuck to the roof of my mouth, my throat constantly dry-swallowing, adam's apple yoyoing rapidly.

Cold, steely, writhing worms of tension iced their way through my guts, my scrotum pulled tight against my body.
My sphincter constantly contracting and relaxing, bowels threatening to empty as the fear washed over me in continuous tidal waves.

A glance in the mirror showed a face haggard with terror, apprehensive, drawn, pale, lined with tension, the mouth tight, and thin-lipped, eyes impossibly wide open, round and staring, each one a bullseye of white, blue, and black.

Then the visions came...

And the sounds...

I watched in horror as the cars collided…

Racing engines...

Squealing tyres...

Shrieking brakes...

Screaming voices....

A never-ending continuous cacophony...

A horrifying montage of colour and movement.

I watched as the cars piled into one another, impacted, compacted, flipped over, somersaulted...

Bones cracked and splintered against steering columns, faces punched through windscreens, flesh and sinew shredded against glass and steel, limbs torn from torsos....


On and on, until all I saw stretching from horizon to horizon was a rolling boiling ocean of tortured twisted mangled metal and Minced meat.
Intertwined, interlocked.
Bent bumpers, gnarled grills, crumpled bonnets and doors.
Shattered windows, light glinting off the odd diamond of glass still stubbornly clinging to the rubber seal.

A viscous globby cocktail of coolant, brake fluid, fuel, and gore splattered over it all.

The voice brought me back to reality...

“Don't worry.” Said the instructor. “ It's quite normal to be a bit nervous on your first driving lesson.”


©2010 Stephen. J. Green.