A Car, a Torch, a Death.

Inspired by the Twenty One Pilots song with the same name. This is about a girl who asks her beloved to leave her because she doesn't have much time left to live and the pain it causes the narrator.

Link to song: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hrxXZ5o8nx8

            Frustration.

            Noun.

            “The feeling of being upset or annoyed, especially because of an inability to change or achieve something.”

            That definition described why I felt the way I felt. But I felt more. I felt irritated. I felt aggravated. I felt exasperated.

            It was midnight. Tears were streaming down my face. My hands were shaking. I struggled to breathe. In my head, thoughts were waging war. Some were screaming, begging me to stay. Others were shouting and demanding that I left. And then the battles erupted inside of my head, relentlessly taking away my opportunities to calm everything down, to…think.

            I stepped onto her porch and closed the door behind me.

            The battles in my head ceased.

            And my heart shattered.

            I couldn’t feel my body. My feet moved by themselves and took me down the cement driveway to my car.

            “The air begins to feel a little thin”

            The night’s winds were howling. When they weren’t, the ever-present heat of the night pressed itself against me, trying to shove me along. It was even harder to breathe outside than back inside. My body finally managed to wedge itself into the driver’s seat. The door was shut. My hand mechanically pushed the key into the ignition and the car sputtered to life.

            “as I start the car and then I begin”

            I sat there staring at the hands that were planted along the edges of the steering wheel. They didn’t move. My tears continued down my already drenched face.

            “I don’t…I don’t want to go…” I admitted to myself through clenched teeth.

            Even so, I backed out of the driveway and raced down the street and out of the neighborhood. I took the first exit onto the highway and sped up the car, my hands now gripping the steering wheel as if they wanted to choke it to death.

            “to add the miles piled up behind me.”

            I stomped on the gas pedal. The car roared as it jetted through the fast lane. I focused my eyes to look past the dashboard and out the windshield. I told myself to not look back…I couldn’t look back…don’t look back…

            “I can barely feel a smile deep inside me,”

            Her words echoed in my head. She insisted that I left. She did so even though it clearly was tearing her apart. The words shivered when they were said. She shivered when she said them. No good. I glanced at was on the other side of the median. Cars. Cars rushing to where I had come from. I cursed, wishing that I could just do the same. Just…turn around and go back…

            “And I begin to envy the headlights driving south.”

            But I couldn’t. I couldn’t.

            I bellowed, slamming a solid fist into the door.

            “I want to crack the door so I can just fall out,”

            But, I was doing the right thing, wasn’t I? This is what she decided, whether she wanted things to be like this or not. I was saving her. I was saving her from pain and from torment by letting her go. I urged the car forward. I had to keep going. I couldn’t look back.

            “But then I remembered when you packed my car

            you reached in the back and buckled up your heart,”

            No looking back.

            “for me”

            Don’t look back.

            “to drive”

            Don’t.

            “away with.”

            D****t…

            “I begin to understand why God died”

 

            I swerved the car into the shoulder lane. A second passed. Some more after it. And then…I broke. I punched the steering wheel as hard as I could and screamed as loud and as long as my lungs would allow before they collapsed. My frustration, my aggravation, my exasperation was violently freed.

            “The demons said they’re waiting on her porch.

            It was a little dark, so he held a makeshift torch.”

            I hated the situation. I hated her situation. I hated luck, fate, destiny…whichever was responsible. But most of all, I hated myself. Because I had left her there, knowing that she was suffering and, worst of all, knowing that when I left she would be suffering even more. It was my fall. It was all my fault…

            “And when my car was far out of sight

            he crept in her room and stayed there for the night.”

            I knew it was going to overwhelm her. The pain. The fear. The lack of purpose. The lack of time. The lack of hope. I stopped punching the steering wheel and saw crimson splattered on it. What a masterpiece. I saw the blood coating my wrist and dripping off my pinkie finger onto my jeans. Something had to be broken. But I couldn’t feel it. And I couldn’t give a s**t.

            Look at how all of it was overwhelming me.

            “And then I felt chills in my bones,”

            My spine tingled. My blood went cold.

            “the breath I saw was not my own.”

            My heart raced, but was I even breathing?

            “I knew my skin that wrapped my frame”

            My entire body began to tremble.

            “wasn’t made to play this game.”

            I wanted to die. If I couldn’t live life with her in it, then I didn’t want to live. There was no hope that she would be with me until we grew old. So, there was no point to life anymore.

            I wanted the ground to swallow me whole. I wanted to suffocate in the earth. I wanted to stop crying, stop breathing, stop existing.

            I wanted to die.

            “And then I saw him, torch in hand.

            He laid it out, what he had planned.”

            And then I realized something. If everything was causing me this much pain…

            I had just genuinely wanted to die.

            If that’s the case, she’s…

            I stomped on the gas pedal again and rushed to the nearest exit. I skidded into the opposite lane and rushed back onto the highway, this time, going south.

            I had to go back.

            “And then I said ‘I’ll take the grave,

            please just send them all my way.’”

            I wish she wasn’t sick. I wish she had more time to live. I wish she wasn’t always in pain. I wish I could trade places with her. But I couldn’t. What I could do was what I did.

            I began saying a prayer to God through my sobbing. It was all I could think of doing then.

            “God. Please. Please let it not be too late. Please let her hesitate until I get there. Please don’t let her kill herself. Please God let me save her. Let me save the one I love.”

            …

            …

            …

            I’m sorry love. I’m sorry I listened to you. I’m sorry I drove away.

            And I’m sorry that I was too late.

Author's Note

I'd really like to know what you guys think. It was fun bringing the story within the song to life. I'd also like to know if you guys think I should try doing this with other songs and maybe making a short story collection. Thanks!

Reviews

[H L Rose]

Your take on this song is so intriguing. I have honestly pondered it so often without finding a concise story to line it up with(I often like to attribute stories with songs), but this one reflects so much emotion that follows along with the song. I like where you decided to insert the lyrics. I think they fit well.

I did eventually find a story for this song. I thought it followed along with much of the sentiments from the short story "Young Goodman Brown" by Nathaniel Hawthorne. I don't know if it's just me, but within the first few lines I had a "Eureka" moment where the song popped into my head and it fit just right.

I enjoyed reading this!

[Outsider]

This is so beautifully written, it brought tears to my eyes as I read "i was to late". This hit really close to home and the way you used the song made it even more real. You are a wonderful writer and I'm looking forward to reading more.

[Kayla Amaro]

Thank you so much for the kind words!

[Virtue Jackson]

That was beautiful, I'm crying.

[Eowyn Doyle]

This is amazing! Another one that could be good in this style is The Snow Came Down by Trans-Siberian Orchestra.

[Kayla Amaro]

I'll give it a shot!

[Dark_Entity_115]

How bout this?
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PMWX8MasK-Q

[Kayla Amaro]

The song is pretty. I already have a few ideas