Gas Leak

Let me press you,
My question is this…
Do you ever care to feel sand beneath your feet and smattered in between your toes?

I do not understand his preemptive question and I shake my head. I keep on driving, the European motor shudders as my leg stiffens and hits the accelerator.
There is gas in the cockpit of the car. I can smell it. I lift my nose and sample the air. I’m almost sure of it. Is the gas seeping from the engine through the air vents? I close them but still the thick smell hangs in the air, I can feel it all around me, thickening the air I’m breathing and striking the back of my throat as it passes through my nostrils. I turn to look at him, to see if there is any recognition on his face but his eyes are far off gazing into the muddy cornfields whizzing by. I don’t have to ask him, I know he can’t smell the gas. I wouldn’t give him the satisfaction of asking if he can smell the rancid scent wafting in the space between us. He’d smile, maybe even laugh up into the air, not a haughty hysteria but a quiet chuckle showcasing his cool aversion to my quixotic nerves. Apparently my neuroses are amusing. I think he’d enjoy watching me sweat and bite my lip the entire car trip then spend an evening surrounded by naked, gyrating females at the Cherry Patch Ranch II in the Nevada Desert. The smell is becoming stronger; it’s going to catch any minute now. One spark and we’re goners.

I want to feel you.

Excuse me?

He laughs upwards, throwing his mirth into the air like a ragdoll.

I want to feel your idea out. You know?
Let’s just talk. You can’t be silent the whole car trip.
We might as well deal with it now while we have all this empty time.
What’s your idea again?
That we remain professional, colleagues?
Is that what you meant in the email?
Because quite frankly if that’s what you want then I think I should start looking for a new job.

He glances at me furtively.
Don’t do it I’m thinking. Just drive. Don’t do it and then he makes the fatal mistake.

I know this job is important to you. You’ve worked hard, really hard but I can’t sit back and watch you do this.

“Do what?” I think but then I realize where the gas is coming from. It’s clearly emanating from his bowlers hat. I want to grab the felt brim and chuck his hat out the window but before I can snatch it he grabs my hand and laces his fingers through mine. As I feel his fingers touch my clammy palms I realize his fatal error and moments after the air bursts into flames. The heat is unbearable instantaneously and the windows shatter as the oxygen is sucked from my lungs.

I’m proud of you, I really am and don’t take this offer as me being presumptuous because I’m not but I just can’t sit back and not be honest.

He’s still talking? He should be screaming, this burns and the leather is curling off my seat and my fingers are welding to the steering wheel.

But I want you to work with me.
I know it’s far away and a new territory for you but you and I have the same eye; we’d make a great team.

My eyes are liquefying like mercury and they ran down my face and fall into my lap.
I can’t turn the steering wheel and I am coming up on a corner that I know I can’t take.
I’m going to have to take us through the corn fields.

I think you should pull over you don’t look well…

Fingers grip tighter as I brace myself for the lip on the road to end.

Just pull over! Pull over god damn it.

Hands grab the steering wheel and pull sharply to the right. I can hear the gravel as it pelts the under carriage of the car and my foot instinctively slams on the brakes.
I jerk my head to the passenger seat and I notice he has taken his bowler hat off. Finally! Now if I can just get him to throw it out the window.
The air is cool, he is opening the windows.

You need to breathe, just breathe.

Love is a word, love is a doing verb.

What? You’re talking nonsense… we don’t have to talk about this just forget it for now. Let me drive and we can just get there. We can worry about it another time.

I watch him get out the passenger side and slowly makes his was around the hood, his bowler’s hat is back on his head. Shit!

My door opens and his hand is waiting for mine.

Come on, get out – get some fresh air. We’re ten miles for the next gas station – I’ll buy you a cup of coffee.

No, I’m driving; we don’t need to go to a gas station. I don’t want anymore gas.

What? Are you insane? You were screaming just a couple minutes ago, saying you were on fire! Do you remember that?

I’m driving! I’ll drive you all the way to the Cherry Patch Ranch II if I have to but I’m not taking your hand.

You’re daft! Get… out…. of the…. car.

He places his hands underneath my arms and lifts me out of the seat. The fabric of my whole being catches fire this time. My bones shatter, my femurs turn to dust, my heart valves constrict, my veins and arteries reverse flow.

I’m dying. I’m screaming, I’m dying – let me go.

The sky turns an eerie forest green and the clouds being to swirl and twirl above our heads. The landscape jostles as the wind whips at the tops of the corn. He holds me closer and a voice rings through my ears.

You’re just being born my dear.

A huge thunderclap booms from the sylvan clouds and a lightning bolt strikes the car. We are knocked off our feet.

Breathe, the voice says. Breathe baby, breathe.