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Excerpt from The Tantalizing Truth

The rain was falling in a cold mist, making a hissing noise as it battered at the windshield. Kimball’s hands gripped the steering wheel as if it were the only thing holding him into his seat, the seatbelt dangling limply at his left shoulder. A warning alarm was pinging softly and a red light was flashing on the dash in a vain attempt to prompt the driver to buckle-up. His mind was a maelstrom of conflicting emotions: Confusion, anger, grief, fear. He sat rigid, fuel-cell engine whispering. Life meant nothing. Why go on? What happiness could a man know when returns from work and his wife of … how many years? Is he forgetting already? … dies from an unknown illness and is now nowhere to be found? Half his crew was bad enough, but his wife!

He turned his head to look through the water dripping down his passenger-side window at the home that contained his life. Still contains. His heart was pounding hard in his chest, his stomach a solid mass of cold iron, the rain dripping down the window a mirror of face. He was a strong man, physically, emotionally, but the pain from the lump in his throat was threatening to strangle him, constricting his breathing.

His shaking hand moved to the gear shift in an aggressive motion and pulled violently on it, but it would not move, he looked down angrily through the mist in his eyes and slammed on it in an effort to make it move; was everything in the world turning against him? A calm feminine voice - mercifully different from his wife’s – gently reminded him that his seatbelt was not correctly engaged. Dammit, he thought, and slammed the belt mechanism in place to satisfy the damned computer, reached back to the gear shift and wrenched it into drive.

He was robbed of the thrilling effect of powerful acceleration by the governed throttle, an effect which served only to further inflate his anger and frustration. He didn’t have a destination in mind, he just had to go. Go fast. Faster! The street lights caused a halos in the mist spattering his windshield, but he didn’t notice. His foot seemed to push harder on the throttle of it’s own volition, shaking, revving the engine harder, pushing the car faster down the quiet residential street. Where am I going? Heart pounding wildly, he spontaneously cranked the steering wheel to the right at a major intersection and careened down the three lane toward the industrial area close to the water.

Of other traffic, there was virtually none. A man heading to the convenience store, a couple on their way home from a movie, he didn’t notice the gray non-descript car parked just off to the right on another residential approach, or that it pulled out behind him. He couldn’t see his speedometer, not that he tried to look, and his rear-view mirror was cranked at an unnatural angle. His focus was inside his mind, trying desperately to remember every single line on his wife’s beautiful face, savouring the feel of her soft lips on his … lips he could never feel again, the injustice! He longed to feel her wrapped in his arms, to lie beside her and hear her breathing softly, to see her brilliant smile and toss her hair just so, to tell her he loved her. Still loves.

The sob wrenched itself free from his chest, a soul-rending cry as he pounded on the steering wheel in frustration, foot pressing hard to the floor all the while. Memories swirled in confusion through his mind, mingled with the confusion – Oh God how could this happen? What am I going to tell the kids? He could imagine their innocent, wonderful, cheerful faces looking at him as he told them mommy isn’t coming home. Or the innocent questions, “why daddy,” “where is she?”

The gray car following him closed the gap, it’s motor far outperforming the family sedan Kimball was driving. As it approached, the driver flipped a switch and a dazzling display of red and blue lights flashed through his rear window, reflecting off the dash and the windshield. For a moment, Kimball was consumed by a flash of anger, and he hammered harder on the accelerator. The car failed to respond, already at its limit.

The driver of the unmarked police cruiser behind him examined the screen on his dash and calmly selected the option to remotely control the engine of the speeding car ahead of him. Then he selected immediate deceleration in order to stop the vehicle, after which he immediately matched speed and cruised to a gentle stop. Inwardly, he was scratching his head, as he always did when someone was driving so obviously dangerously. What could motivate a person do drive like that? He had heard every excuse in the book … everything from late for school to the extreme call-of-nature. Oh he’d had to deal with his share of impared drivers, but most of them nowadays were just due to pure stupidity and poor judgement. He called his dispatcher and informed them of his intentions, collected his paperwork and stepped out of his police cruiser into the misting rain.

Kimball’s hands stayed on the steering wheel. His car had betrayed him. Shoulders shaking weakly, the rain spattered him through his already-opened window as he heard the sound of the officer’s shoes crunching on the fine gravel at the side of the road. His mind had returned to the present, and he sighed deeply, heart rate decreasing as he relaxed slightly. A year ago, a week ago, being pulled over by the police for speeding would have wound him up, caused him to be incredibly nervous. But this time, he felt no remorse for driving the way he did. It was his right to grieve!

The police officer, buttons and buckles gleaming wetly in the orange street lights, stepped up to his opened window and stood for a moment, scribbling on a rapidly dampening pad of paper. “I.D. and registration, please.” It was a command, not a request.

“Uh … just a sec …” The words felt alien in his mouth. Thin, inconsequential. He rummaged around in his console and retrieved the small booklet that contained his registration information. He was always very meticulous about taking care of his registration. “My license is in my wallet, I have to reach in my back pocket to get it.”

“That’s fine sir, proceed.” The officer stepped back slightly and put his hand on his side-arm.

It seemed to Kimball almost humorous … what could he do in his condition? He was a mess. He wouldn’t be able to subdue a drunken brawler, let alone an armed police officer. He leaned his pelvis up toward his steering wheel slightly and reached around with his right hand to free his wallet. After a second of fighting with it because his whole arm was shaking and slightly limp, and he had a hard time controlling his fingers. Freed, he flipped it open and pulled out his identification and passed both to the officer who used his free hand to collect the documents.

“I’ll be a moment.” That was it. He turned and walked back to his car, steps steady on the fine, wet gravel.

Kimball sat with his window still open. The rain sprinkled on his arm and slowly soaked the fabric up to his shoulder. For a blessed moment, his mind was blank, he stared at the myriad lights sprinkled over his wet windshield, following the trail they left as they slipped down the glass and ran off to the side of the car. The lights on the dash interfered with his vision sufficiently to make it difficult to see more than a short distance ahead, but he knew he was only half a mile or so from the lakeside. He could smell the water, a smell he had come to associate with work, his home-away-from-home. He spent as much or more time with the water as he did with his own family. What an interesting situation, he thought, tragic surely, but it’s been that way for hundreds of years … what a curious existence. Perhaps this is what defines us as humans, for what other animal tortures itself the same way, working?