Maybe I'm not that good a driver

When you let go of your gas and breaks in a tough curva, look around yourself at the hills coated in pearly white, breathe in the last puff of your dying cigarette mixed in both with the sharp, unforgiving air that blesses the utter emptiness around you, and with the unnaturally warm breath of the machine whose hands you are placing your life in, all your bets are settled. At first, your grip on the steering wheel is so strong you feel your hands sweat, but the strange relief of the thought that you’ve resigned your fate softens you up a little; the dye has been cast and you have only to wait for the outcome. For the next half a second your body is caught in a frenzy; gravity commands with her soft yet imposing voice that you shan’t lean forward but you, you of instinct, try to resist. Some part of you feels it knows better and begs of you to slam on the breaks; your muscles twitch with indecision because you know you’re going to fast and that either breaking or accelerating will lead to certain death.

Your life, the one that never was, starts flashing before your eyes as you try as hard as you can to just focus on the task at hand, but you can’t because you’re not meant for this— that is to say you can’t surmount the simple task of not freaking out. You come to a realisation that you’ve had a million times before and once again it shakes you to your core, that there is nothing after this and that you will be nothing for the rest of time. Billions of years will go by in what amounts to less than a moment— for you, and as far as you’re concerned everyone else, nothing will ever be. You will not “respawn“, you will not endure torture or bathe with virgins, you just won’t be, ever again. No, this moment, two in the morning in the middle of fucking nowhere is time you could’ve spent sleeping. For this one moment, you feel and you know that Camus was wrong. The universe is not indifferent for he who is the subject and the object, the master and the slave, is all there is. Hell is not other people, salvation is. You think of your ex whom you broke up with because your life was boring, oh what you would give for that comfort once more. This time could’ve been time spent sleeping, sleeping for fucks sake. You could’ve woken up fresh as a lily and enjoyed the monotony that has forced you to do this in the first place, it’s not so bad and it never was. But, well, you’re here— you had to “live a little“, and now you must see it through. Once again, the dye has been cast.

There you come once again to a certain type of calm— yes, it is true that you can no longer break, accelerate, or shift gears. You must not turn your head or close your eyes, or even take your hands off the wheel. For the next few seconds you must remain how you are, or else you won’t be at all. If the person that was seated in your place just mere moments ago had miscalculated and applied themselves or imposed their will just a bit too much, it will all be over, so you have no choice but to trust them and their judgement. You are here to wait, and that is all.

You might make it and all the thoughts and grand ideals that mere moments ago seemed inscribed into your heart would be undone and wash away; you would probably go on just as happy or unhappy as you were before, perhaps you’d think yourself a bit more immortal for having lived through this, or maybe you’d feel a bit more kinship with your kind, probably a bit of guilt for thinking only of yourself in these moments. Maybe you’d spend some time thinking about your first girlfriend, who showed you how lucky you really were in life; you’d probably feel regret for something that you have done, though probably not the kind that makes you want to dig a hole and bury yourself, but a feeling that you are not cattivo, you just make mistakes. This understanding would then extend its fair and loving arms to everyone in your life; you’d understand them a bit better and love them a bit more. You’d be more ethereal in a sense, someone that better understands the ephemeral nature of our lives and with compassion touches the lives of his kind.

Or, after it is done… it’d just be done.

Now overcome with a strange sensation, the finality of it all, you feel what athletes must when time is running out and all that is and will ever be depends solely upon decisions that have already been made. The ball is in the air, and your entire being is enthralled in it to such a degree that you are it. You are where you’re supposed to be— weightless, cool as a cucumber, and passionate to a fault.

You look, you breathe. You wait. It’s over.