Hey!! Welcome to 2018!! Let's hope it's a hell of a lot better than the year that shall not be named. Anyway, the very first flash fiction for the new year is set around the picture below. So here it is!
Mary Kathryn rolled down the snow covered
road, her foot an uneasy companion on the brake pedal. The windshield wipers
slapped furiously at the falling snow, but the stuff came down faster than the
wipers could manage. The clock on the dash read six-thirty. She should have
been at her destination two hours ago. Spend a week up at a beautiful mountain
cabin her friends had said. It won’t be a problem at all. It’s so easy to get
to. Easy her ass.
She poked at the GPS mounted on the front
dash. In a snotty tone he grumbled, “Recalculating.”
“You’ve been recalculating for the last
twenty minutes you piece of shit.” Mary Kathryn shouted. “You led me here. I
wouldn’t be here, but for your directions. So get me out.”
The only reply was, “Recalculating.”
“I’ll show you recalculating.” She ripped
the offending piece of electronics off her dash and hurled it out the window
into the snow. “Recalculate that, why don’t you?”
For a moment, she felt good, triumphant, but
then realized she’d thrown out her only means of navigation. She had no maps or
written directions. She only had an address and it was currently stored inside
the GPS that now sat outside the car. Outside in the snow. In the snow that was
falling faster than she cared to notice.
“Fuck,” she muttered, bringing the car to
a stop. “Fuck, fuck, fuck.” She added for emphasis.
Wearily, she put the car in park and
climbed out into onto the snowy road. She hadn’t pitched the thing that far,
she reasoned with herself, so it should be easy to find. She walked confidently
to where she was sure it was and found nothing. She kicked at the snow hoping
she would suddenly see black plastic, but it didn’t happen. Frantically, she
dropped to her knees and began to comb over the ground. What the hell? One
small mistake and she was permanently lost? Never to be found? Until the spring
thaw when someone would find her lifeless remains in the middle of the road
only mere feet from the damn GPS.
“Please, oh please.” She said as she
sifted and dug through snow. “I’ll never curse again. I’ll be polite to people
who don’t deserve it. I’ll start eating better and exercising.”
Her hand closed around something small and
square. Pulling it forth she discovered her GPS and cradled it to her chest.
Okay, she was okay now. Huffing out a breath she climbed to her feet and stumbled
back to her car. The snow was falling faster or maybe it just felt like it
since she was out in it. Either way, by the time she closed herself back in the
car she was wet all the way through and freezing. Ignoring the shivers, she
dried the GPS off with a towel and tapped the screen. The thing hesitated only
a moment before it came on and told her it was acquiring a satellite signal.
“What? You had a signal. Why do you have
to try to acquire one again?”
She laid it on the passenger seat and
began the breathing exercises her therapist had given her. Slowly, she pulled a
breath in through her nose, held it, and slowly let it out. She tried to
imagine calming images such as a roaring fire, waves rolling on a white sand
beach, and a cup of hot chocolate. When she felt calmer, she opened her eyes
and smiled. Yep, she was fine. Everything was okay.
“Drive to highlighted route,” the GPS
directed.
She picked it up to discover no
highlighted route shown on the screen, only a series of squiggly black lines
that could have been anything from roads to worms.
“What highlighted route?” She demanded.
“Drive to highlighted route,” the voice
replied.
“What the fuck!” She shrieked. “There is
no highlighted route, you mechanical piece of shit.”
“Drive to highlighted route,” the voice
now taunted.
She turned the screen to face the snow
storm. “Do you see a fucking highlighted anything? I don’t. I see a big load of nothing. You
were supposed to take me where I wanted to go. That’s how our relationship
works. I put in the address and you tell me how to get there. But instead, you
prattle on about recalculating and highlighted routes. Are you fucking nuts?”
“Drive to highlighted route,” came the
snotty reply.
“Bite me.” She tossed the idiot box in the
backseat and put the car in gear. Obviously, the thing had some kind of defect
so she would just get herself out of the mess it had gotten her into. She gave
the car gas and began to once again move down the snow covered road. It had to lead somewhere, right? I mean, no
one would have built a road that led to nothing. MK snorted, yeah right,
with her luck the thing would lead her right off a cliff. And the damn GPS
would still be yelling at her to drive to the highlighted route. Asshead thing.
MK gave the car more gas as it struggled
to break through the snow covering the road. She doubted this place ever saw a
snow plow. Hell, she doubted it saw people since she hadn’t seen another
vehicle in hours or was it days? She wasn’t sure anymore. When…if she ever made
it back to civilization, she was going to kill every one of her friends who
badgered her to go on this slow trip to hell.
So what if her life was boring? So what if she hadn’t dated in so long
she couldn’t remember? She had a job she somewhat liked. Okay, tolerated. But
it paid the bills and right now that’s what she was looking for. Not some grand
adventure. Unfortunately, she’d found the adventure, but she didn’t know how
grand it was. Being trapped in a snow storm with no clue where she was or where
she was going wasn’t exactly something she had wanted when she’d started out.
She leaned closer to the wind shield as
the wipers attempted to keep her vision clear. The snow was falling so hard
that even on high the wipers were getting bogged down. She hated to admit it,
but if this kept up she was going to have to stop since she wouldn’t be able to
see. Then what? She wasn’t sure. Her foot got heavier on the accelerator as if
that was going to help things. All it did was make the car shudder and the
wheels begin to slide. She eased up only slightly as she continued down her own
personal road to Hell. It had to be because she couldn’t think of any other
explanation. She couldn’t figure out what she’d done to deserve any of this,
but it had to be pretty horrible to warrant this type of abuse.
“In one mile, turn right,” a muffled voice
from the backseat proclaimed.
Mary Kathryn started, remembering she’d
tossed the GPS back there. One mile? One mile! Yes. All she had to do was stay
on the road and she would get to where she was supposed to be. She did a little
jig in her seat and leaned even closer to the windshield. Energy surged through
her body as she thought about the interminable journey coming to an end. One mile
and she could quit the stupid car. One mile and she could relax, crack open the
wine she’d brought and drink until she passed out. Life was good.
She didn’t care that the snow was coming
down so hard she doubted she could see the right to turn. At this point, she’d
walk. She just wanted to sit someplace that didn’t move. She blinked to clear
her vision. Only a little longer, she told herself. You can do this. You are
woman and you can do anything. She sang about how cool she was as she brought
the car to a crawl. The GPS, once an evil piece of crap, now informed her that
she would be turning any minute now. She sang to the GPS then, telling it how
awesome it was.
With the GPS egging her on, MK slowly
began turning the wheel. She couldn’t entertain the thought the thing was wrong
or she could be turning off a steep cliff. All she wanted was to reach her
destination. That was it. Nothing more, nothing less. With a lurch, the car
eased onto what she thought was a road. Since it wasn’t shooting like a rocket
down a hill she was happy as she began to straighten the wheel out. From the
backseat the voice of doom called out.
“Recalculating.”
“What? I made the turn.”
“Recalculating.”
She took her foot off the gas, but the car
kept going. Fortunately, it didn’t go far, just a few feet. Unfortunately, it
slid down a small hill until it ran into a large something. The belt snapped
her back against the seat and the engine whined. She blinked, unsure of what just happened.
One minute she’d been on the road and the next…she wasn’t sure. The airbags
hadn’t deployed so that was a positive. The car was also running. Taking a
deep, shaky breath she eased the vehicle in reverse and touched the gas. All
that did was cause the engine to whine louder and the tires to spin. She was
stuck. Well fuck.
“Drive to highlighted route,” the voice
prattled from behind her.
Mary Kathryn burst into laughter. Sure she
would, just as soon as the snow melted and she could back her car out. She was
also planning to get a new GPS since this one obviously had issues. Serious
issues. Maybe it needed therapy. Sighing, she shoved her door open and
tentative stepped out. Instantly, she dropped down and found herself ass deep
in snow. Of course the car would wind up in a snow bank. Where else would it
go? She boosted herself back into the car enough to turn the engine off and
grab her purse. She wasn’t sure where to go, but she couldn’t stay where she
was.
She looped the purse strap over her head
until it hung down across her chest and began to slowly wade up to the main
road. Or at least she hoped that’s where she was heading. At this point, she
didn’t care. She just wanted out. Losing her footing, she yelled out as she
fell on her face and slid back down next to her car. She attempted to get to
her feet, but with nothing to hold on to, she was once again eating snow. The
process of attempting to get up and ending up back on her face went on for a
good long time until MK rolled onto her back and screamed as loud as she could.
Her frustration level was through the roof and she could understand how someone
could finally lose it and do something heinous.
She lay in the snow panting as a voice
chimed out, “Please drive to highlighted route.”
“Well fuck me,” she muttered.
“Is that an invitation?” A low male voice
inquired.
Now, go and see what Bronwyn, Kris, Siobhan, and Kayleigh came up with.
