Flash Fiction: Car of Dreams

(originally from April 2008)

 

Written for the BWBR Challenge. Look at it as an ode to my Dad’s old Nova 😉

CAR of DREAMS

The sun sets on the old car in the backyard, bathing the rusting body in glowing colors.  Nature fights to slowly claim it, turning it into a home for her creatures, so that the animals look at it and see a place of safety, someone to shelter from the storm and night, a secret place to dream in safety.  Green weeds grow around flat tires and purple flowers peep through the cracked floorboards.  Lazy bees drone around the peeling steering wheel, and wasps live under the hood in droning nests while rabbits hide beneath it, their wiggly noses peeping out to peer at the quiet trees.

But the heavy summer silence is broken by the children. They run and laugh, they crunch the grass as they race each other to the old car, hurrying towards their rusty oasis, their favorite forbidden toy.

They arrive in a heap and climb up the trunk, but the frame doesn’t bow under their weight. The old car is no longer a vehicle rusting in the grass but now it is a boat floating on the ocean tides, taking them to far away lands.  Soon the ship becomes a race car and they bounce on dirty seats, ignorant of the dust the rotten foam expels. And then the car becomes an island, and they are pirates trying to bury their treasure, their happy voices filling the twilight hours as they act out their dreams.

But another voice interrupts, one that barks “Kids! Get off that car! It isn’t a toy!”

And regretfully they do as they’re told, casting back looks towards the rusting metal structure as they walk towards the house and their expectant father.

“You kids know better,” he says firmly as they reach him. “That’s the first car your mother and I ever owned, and one of these days I’m going to fix it up.”

“Yeah, yeah,” they mutter, they’ve heard it a thousand times before.  He has so many plans though it is just a playground to them.

But their father’s eyes see something very different then either the children or the wildlife, because he looks through the veil of love, and to him the old rusty monster is still shining brightly with gleaming chrome and fresh paint, a sleeping princess waiting for a kiss from her prince. And no mater how many years pass, even when the bumper drops off and disappears, still the car will always be his first, his favorite, the one he can never let go; his car of memories and dreams.

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Song playing at the moment – “Long Night Dreaming”- Crash Parallel