What Next?

Nervous laughter

Staccatos like machine gun fire

Cut short abruptly by deathly silence.

Leading the way, a crescent moon

Plays “Hide’n’seek’ behind each rolling hill

Adorned with thin black ribboned road

Winding up and over

Twisting into serpentine curves

Hugging hair-pin bends.

*

A gleaming ‘racing machine’ of cherry red

Our rally driver’s ‘pride and joy’

Ably carries his trusty navigator

Along with two shyly shrinking strangers

Gauche girls hunch, whispering in the rear seat

Wondering at this folly and madness

Their maiden Car Rally

With people, places and purpose unknown!

Why oh why did they not stay safely tucked up at home?

*

Chattering, awkwardly resumes…

A verbal tennis match

‘D’ division doubles’ partners

Conversation ricochets wildly ‘off court’

Its return anxiously awaited

Wishing in vain for the agony to end

All eyes strain, staring straight ahead

Focused on twin laser beams

Penetrating the blanketing fog.

*

Cresting yet another hill

One quick flick of a wrist and a lever

All colour is obliterated

An ominous canvas of inky black…

Simultaneous quadruple heart stoppppping shockwaves

Threaten to swamp the rudderless car

Adrift on an ocean of oblivion

All thought lost in a tempest of shock and horror

Hurtling towards their last breath, moment and memory.

*

Written for the challenge below and inspired by memories of my first Youth Group Car Rally. A friend and I were travelling on a wet, winding country road, in a car with two boys we didn’t know when the car lights died on the crest of a hill, . Obviously, we survived!😅