Lines

New Year Prompt

Author Note: This was written as a prompt of "Write something about New Year's" with the condition of being under 750 words.

A vagrant haze of fog rolled in calmly against the river of asphalt laid out before him. His thoughts were tuned to a dead radio station - static roaring in the back of his mind as he focused on staying between the lines painted yellow. The dissonant confluence of rhythm leaking out of the speakers had long since faded from his attention.

Amidst the ruminations of the midnight drive, the station whirred and tuned between numbers he did not request. It was enough to rip him from his focal point in the horizon and onto the dashboard. It read out in its archaic text a number he did not recognize. Confused, he grabbed at one of the dials and began to search for his previously held landing point, but the number would not budge from its perch of "200.0."

He didn't realize the stations went that high, but then again he never tried to reach the end of the lineup. He stuck to his familiar garden of old, forgotten tunes hummed but dead or missing singers. They felt emotions for people, places, ambitions, and successes that may or may not have ever existed at all. And there is a beautiful melancholy in hearing the droning sorrows of a man he'll never meet, whose life extinguished before he ever came to be.

After a few minutes of trying to tune away from 200.0, he gave up. He wasn't really listening anyway, and he was already going to be late. At least, he felt confident in these assertions until the station began to create discordant hues of sound; walls of noise that permeated the box he called a car. It entered the very pores of his skin, and threatened to derail every and any sense to which he could bear witness. The sound metastasized in him, and as though a levy had broken, it flooded him with dread.

With a start, he jammed on the dial now and several other buttons on the dash. Desperate attempts to unhinge the station from its hold, no matter what he inputted into the interface it denied all efforts. In vain he fumbled around, and he did not notice the yellow lines that guided him before. They crossed and drifted beyond the lined rubber, and would have warned him of their departure had his focus not turned to fruitless desperation.

Only as he began to strike at the dashboard did his eyes glance up. Just in time to see a lonesome oak tree that was well illuminated by his headlights as they cast themselves against and beyond its bark. He struck it with such a force that he was ejected through the windshield, and on landing immediately lost consciousness.

His eyes cracked themselves open, shedding a layer of blood in the process. His lungs inhaled to their capacity; just enough to wheeze, gasp, and sputter. An effort to sit up entered the electricity of his mind, but no response greeted it. His body simply refused outright. Finally, his eyes moved to his vehicle. The headlights still were active, casting an obfuscating shadow onto the wreckage as his eyes tried to adjust around the harsh illumination.

Feeling fruitless at every avenue, he closed his eyes and tried to relax. And that's when the sound entered once again. It was not a wall, but a flutter. If he focused on it, he swore it sounded like his mother. He could hear her gently crying. Rigid breaths and shaking hiccups, it sounded so familiar. It cast a shiver down his spine.

A flash of light woke him up, a firework off in the distance. There were several now thudding against the horizon. With every remaining ounce of life, he sat himself up enough to spin around. Then, while clutching at the grass and dirt beneath him, he began to crawl back to his crumpled heap of metal. The wreckage would have caused him to sob had he the strength to do so. The battery had since died out, but a question still burned in his mind.

Was that really my mother on the radio?

With the last vestiges of strength, he clambered back into the driver's seat. As he exhaled in victory, his eyes opened up again.

Still on the road.

Still between those faithful yellow lines.

And just as he took in the sights, a lonesome oak tree passed in his peripheral.

With that, he picked up his phone.

"Hi Mom, happy New Year."