I had a lot of old drafts that I for various reasons never actually published. Some of them probably because they were shit. Some of them just cause I never got round to editing them. I’ve picked a few that I thought had some merit. They are hopelessly out-of-date but they still made chuckle/think. Enjoy.
Should have been published: 2020
“Is the right rear flat?”
It’s an innocent seeming question but inside our little Ford Escort Mk II, making it’s way through Finnish forests, it feels loaded beyond carrying capacity. My DiRT Rally NPC co-driver has asked the question once already. He knows the answer because the game has fed him the information, no asking required, 100% guaranteed. And if he needed any clues: my erratic, swerving driving has gone markedly up in erraticity and swervingness since I hit that ditch at full speed.
So why phrase it like a question? Hell, why do I even phrase it as a question; I know why he is asking, rather than telling. It’s the oldest passive-agressive relationship trick in the book: You want the other guy to say it himself. Admit the fuck-up. Swallow the turd. This awful situation we are in, together, right now, yeah? It’s your fault, and I want to hear you say it out loud. We’ve been in this car together for a couple of hours all told. It feels like years.
“YES!!! Yes, it’s f***king flat, you f**king p***k!”, I shout into my living room, immediately hoping the nice, elderly couple upstairs are still at church.
For the sake of my sanity, I stop the car and accept the 1½ minute penalty for fixing the rear right. As I slowly gain speed, the game informs me drily that I’m now 4+ minutes behind the lead time.
My co-driver calls out a crest ahead, maybe.
Whenever Carly Rae Jepsen ends a sentence with a maybe, it’s an invitation to imagine a future stretching out ahead. This feels like a perverted version. Yes, we have just met, yes the other boys are chasing me and yes, we’re in each other’s way. Stare holding, check. Hard to look right at you, check.
“To finish”, he says. The tone is leaden. Is it an invitation or a statement?