Start.

Foot down, lean back. Push the pedal down with so much force that it feels like my foot will go through the bottom of the car and drag on the road. The whites of my knuckles illuminated on the clammy steering wheel by fake, intrusive lamppost light. Flickering as each light flies overhead.

 

I am in a video game with one life left precariously poised somewhere between exhilaration and disaster. Words rush around my head like bluebottles trapped in a jar. The hairs on the back of my neck stand to attention.

 

60, 65, 70.

 

Luckily for me, the road is clear in that dead time between night and early morning. The birds aren’t singing yet and I wouldn’t notice them through the roar of engine even if they were. My eyes drying up through lack of blinking, intensely fixed on the tarmac carpet that unravels in front of me in the headlights of my speeding metal carcass.

 

75, 80, 85.

 

Air whistles through the air vents and blasts my face uncomfortably; exposing my skin and making it feel like it is much colder than it actually is. My blood boils inside my arteries and makes veins bulge in my forearms and forehead.

 

F**k them all. Family, friends, and everyone else in between. F**k them all. They can rot in hell. I imagine my hands turning the steering wheel to guide the car off the road, over the curb and into something solid.

 

F**k THEM ALL.

 

90. 95. 98.

 

The engine noise is getting louder. The voices inside me are getting louder.

 

Through another red light. Across another empty junction. Past lampposts and parked cars and bus-stops and phone boxes.

 

F**K THEM ALL.

 

My hands grip the steering wheel with such force that my arms are seizing up to become solid metal bars. Mechanised and rigid. My shoulders tense, I let out a scream from deep down inside my guts. More heartfelt and animalistic than any voice box was designed for. My foot is now pushed as far down as it goes, so much so that my leg is beginning to tremble.

 

99.100.101.

 

My vision blurs amidst the water in my eyes. Teeth gritted. Arms rigidly clutching the steering wheel. The blue-bottles in my ears get louder and louder and louder. Intrusive lights flicker above my head, forcing their way through my eyelids. So much anger then I know that it will soon be too much to contain and will spill out through the pores of my skin.

 

F**K THEM ALL.

 

Suddenly, the vehicle moves from under me, out of control, my heart stops beating and I close my eyes and await impact. Screeching noise. Impact. Pain. Quiet.

 

Game over.