Apologies. Another short one tonight. Apparently I’ve got cars on my brain lately; this is all I can come up with.
Gregory Caldecott shifted down from fourth to third, tapped the brakes lightly, and late-apexed into the corner. The tires squealed a little, and the car did a neat four-wheel drift to the outside of the turn, coming dangerously close to gravel that was the only separation between the asphalt and the cliff, but there was very little body roll from the nearly ancient Triumph.
Gregory (never Greg) loved the little British car with an affection that his girlfriends could never fathom, and he enjoyed immensely the times when he could take it out, put down the top, and put it through it’s paces on smooth dry pavement. The mountain air was fresh, but not biting. The coupe surged, it purred, it roared.
It was alive.
Much more alive than the rest of Gregory’s material possessions. Come to think of it, Gregory readily admitted to himself, he didn’t own that much more than the car. He had the furniture in his apartment, his clothes, a decent teevee and stereo, a cell phone that he rarely used (he’d justified it’s purchase with the familiar “it will be of use to me in ’emergencies'”), and a few knick knacks that tried to fill the empty spaces in the five small rooms he called his “box”.
Gregory was counting the books in his modest library when the tire blew, causing Gregory to miss a shift, a turn, and the rest of his life. In that order.
One person mourned his passing: his mechanic.
Well, two more, for certain definitions of mourning. But that’s another story.