Combustion

That cars explode

whilst suspended mid-air

is an absolute given fact.

Drive one through a barrier

and over a cliff   and

you just know it is going to be

enveloped in flames

before it hits the ground there below.

How do I know this?

Well hell… I’ve

seen it in the movies.

All I know is that if I launch my car

off a 500 foot drop, I’m

gonna open that door

and step out into the sky

‘cause I   

sure don’t want to get burned.  No.

Best wait ‘til everything reaches the ground

before I climb back in for

a nice   clean    painless mortality.

You know, I find myself trying to think

of all the cars I’ve ever been in that

spontaneously burst into a ball of flames,

   and I can’t even think of one.

Don’t remember a non-spontaneous combustion either.

It may come down to my always having managed

   to buy a good quality blast-free car.

Either that or I’ve lucked out and

the industrial mechanic for

every purchase I’ve made

forgot to install the airborne detonator.

Then again,

(and this is important)

I don’t know that I’ve ever managed to get

all four wheels off the ground at once.

I suppose it’s extra motivation

to slow down around speed bumps.

Might explain why my wife always screams

when I approach one at high speed.

I may be using a strained logic here

but I figure that all those exploding cars

that you see in the movies

were obviously sitting in

close proximity to a speed bump.

Those CGI guys just use some special affect to

mask out that bump at a later date.

I’m thinking that in an effort to save money on

pyrotechnics in all those Schwarzenegger films,

they probably shot them in

ever so anal residential areas.

ka-‘Burbs.   ka-Bumps.   ka-Bounce.   ka-Boom.

I was once in my car

traveling down the A1-M motorway in England

towards the sprawling city of Milton Keynes.

My destination was a cinema multiplex

where they were showing a

new action flick with Arnold in it.

It was just at dusk and

I was heading into a sunset.

What was curious was that I was driving South.

So    adding up sunsets—

the one in front of me and

the one off my shoulder to the right—

I came to the eerie equation of one sunset too many.

A mile further on and I noticed that

my Southern-most sunset was producing

a vast plume of inky black smoke.

This was either a new solar phenomenon

or confirmation that my rumored lack

of deductive reasoning was indeed sadly true.

At this point on the motorway,

the Southbound lanes were three across

and there just ahead of me,

a multitude of glowing brake-lights

competed with the glow of my polar solar fate.

A half-mile further on and

the chaos of competing red

split into two separate columns

as all the cars diverged

into the far left or right lanes.

There in the center lane

and facing us,    stood a man.

A man silhouetted by a blazing sun

which threatened to engulf us all.

This man…

This man had driven his car

   into the Sun.

Well no.

That’s not necessarily true.

His car was the sun.

No. Again, I’m misleading you.

This man’s car had burst into flames

there in the absolute center of the motorway,

and he, having escaped the inferno,

had wandered a hundred yards

up the middle of the

three lane expanse of road

to face the oncoming traffic

as it veered left and right in a

frantic effort to avoid him.

And there as I drove by

in what appeared to be

a certain cinematic slow motion,

I noticed the look in his eyes.

He was not looking at us. No.

He was in the midst of  trauma;

of horror; of visual overload;

of that proverbial thousand yard stare.

Zero to sixty.    Sixty to zero.

Step out before you hit the ground…

   and survive.

The cerebral shred

of a fuel injected head.

And cars continue to swerve.

And tires continue to screech.

And this is all the action you could ever hope for.

But we have not a second to spare.

No time to pause in mutual PTSD consolation.

Why?

‘Cause we’ve got a date with Swarzenegger.

Oh, the brutal excitement!

The anticipation of all that pending violence!      

The destruction. The decimation.

The deto…nation.

We get to see Arnold kick some doors down.

Snap some bones.    Fracture some teeth.

We get to see him pump high-caliber lead

into the chest of a wide-eyed man who

really really really needs to die.

Hell.     If we’re lucky,

we might even get to see some

   cars blow up.

©2010 Jack Hubbell