By John Nolan
WARNING: The following story contains strong language and mild threat. Content might be unsuitable for readers under the age of 16.
Have you ever had one of those journeys where the world seems as though its on autopilot? You’re there. In a car, on a train or perhaps simply walking. You make it to the intended destination, but when you do, you cannot recall a single detail of how it came to pass.
Perhaps you vaguely remember some signage, maybe a face or even an advertisement in passing. Nothing else. It is as though you watched a BBC wildlife documentary in reverse. You have the ending – you observe the predator munching on its prey – but missed the entirety of David Attenborough’s timelessly eloquent narration.
It was the twenty-ninth day of February, in the year of our Lord, 2020 when it last happened to me.
“Jesus Christ man, pick a space already” I said to the steering wheel of my Suzuki, as I waited for the overpriced Electric Car in front to finally straighten up in the parking bay. Why do they force you to drive all the way back down to exit? It isn’t wide enough to permit traffic going up and down.
“He’s going to hit—” the car swung haphazardly, directly into one of the multi-level car park’s many, many concrete pillars. The sound bounced around the space like someone tuning a snare drum.
The car’s bonnet looked like a shark had surfaced and bitten a large chunk from the bonnet. It sat there, smoking half in, half out of the space.
“Are you alright, mate?” the smell of rubber and the Suzuki’s exhaust fumes hitting me as soon as the window was down.
Nothing.
I looked beyond the rear of the mangled vehicle. Too tight. Cars parked on both sides, I could chance it, but I’d be apt to go into a pillar also.
I opened the driver side door and felt the soles of my Vans on the slick, gleaming car park floor. I always loved the smell of petrol, but with most of the car parks now full of Teslas and electric SUVs—that smell, that heady industrial aroma, like me, is finally becoming obsolete.
“Are you alri—” The car is a mess of metal and innovation, was empty.
I didn’t know what I expected. A car thief or someone in the midst of a medical crisis, perhaps. Not an empty cockpit. I could see the main console—can you believe that? A console in a car? —was still tuned to a radio station. Not a mainstream offering. One of the BBCs, Kiss, Heart, nor Capital. No, the screen said Lazarus FM, in a neat sans-serif font.
I blinked, waiting for the logic of the situation to catch up with my eyes. Physics is a stubborn thing; it rarely allows for magic tricks in municipal car parks. I leaned closer, my breath fogging the shattered glass of the driver’s side window.
The airbag hadn’t deployed—faulty sensor, perhaps—but the steering wheel was bent inward, warped by the force of a chest that wasn’t there.
And then I saw it. The detail that made the hair on my arms stand up, pushing against the fabric of my jacket.
The seat belt was still fastened.
It was pulled taut, a diagonal black slash across the beige leather, straining against an invisible torso. It wasn’t just clicked in; it was engaged, locking tight as if holding back a ghost.
“Hello?” I called out again, my voice cracking slightly. I sounded small. The acoustic tuning of the concrete box swallowed my shout and gave nothing back.
I tried the door handle. Locked. Of course.
I stepped back, the heels of my Vans scuffing loudly. I looked toward the exit ramp, then back to my faithful, rusted Suzuki. It sat idling, a relic of the combustion age, puffing a reassuringly toxic cloud of gray smoke into the sterile air. But it looked wrong. It looked two-dimensional, like a matte painting in a film set that ends abruptly at the edges.
A crackle from the crashed car’s speakers made me jump. The static on Lazarus FM cleared, replaced not by music, but by a voice. It was smooth, calm, and familiar. It had the cadence of a late-night talk show host, but the timbre of a funeral director.
“…and for those just joining us, welcome back. We know the transition can be jarring…” his words trailing off into static.
My heart hammered a frantic rhythm against my ribs. I looked at the digital clock on the dashboard of the wrecked electric car.
I spun around, looking for the security camera, the attendant, the other driver—anyone. But the rows of parked cars were silent. Too silent. There was no distant hum of the city, no honking horns from the street below. Just the smell of burning rubber and that voice.
“Don’t worry about the wreckage,” the radio crooned, and I felt a sudden, sickening drop in my stomach, as if the elevator cable of reality had just snapped.
I looked down at my hands. They were trembling. And for the briefest second, just as the fluorescent light overhead flickered, I could have sworn I saw the concrete floor through them.
The voice on Lazarus FM cleared its throat. “Let’s check the dailies, shall we? Scene 4,021. Interior. Night.”
The car park dissolved. The smell of petrol vanished, replaced by the stale, recycled air of an office block.
I was standing in the break room of my old firm. I was twenty-six. It was 9:00 PM. Everyone else had gone home. On the counter sat the charity jar for the marathon run—a pickle jar stuffed with fivers and tenners. I could still smell that acidic chip shop tang.
I remembered this. I needed taxi money. I had no cash. I intended to pay it back the next day.
My hand reached into the jar. I watched my younger self’s fingers curl around a ten-pound note. I wanted to scream, to grab his wrist, to tell him that this was the audition. That the walls were watching. That the universe was taking notes.
“You put it back the next morning,” the radio voice murmured, narrating my own memory. “But you didn’t tell anyone you took it. You stole a loan. You relied on the dark to hide you. But the lights are always on. There is no ‘dark’ here.”
I blinked.
I was back in the Suzuki. My heart was racing.
“You assume the test is the car crash,” the voice said, sounding bored. “The crash is just physics. A stress test for the chassis. We don’t care about the chassis. We care about the driver.”
I sat there in the driver’s seat. The comfort of its knowing indentation, earned by miles and miles and thousands upon thousands of journeys.
A journey leaves its mark, doesn’t it? Even the small ones. The quick nip to the shops for milk. A school drop-off. Driving to work. Exiting a car park.
Small, but every one leaves an indelible mark.
“Don’t Walter.” the smooth radio voice warned.
Somewhere.
“Walter,”
Someone.
Don’t.
“—do this to me!”
I am 23 now. The woman’s voice cuts through the rain. It is hammering down. We are at a the bus stop. She is angry. Angry at something I did? I don’t remember. It must have been something I said moments ago.
But what did I say moments ago?
Where was I moments ago?
In a car, I think. I know my arse was warmer than it is right now. Much drier too.
“How the bloody hell can you do this to me again, Walt?”
I stare at her. Her eyes are like an erupting volcano. She is beautiful. Her fiery red hair swishes and sways as she flings her index finger towards me.
“I… I think… I was in a Suzuki.” I manage to say at last.
“WHAT. THE. FUCK. IS. WRONG. WITH. YOU. WALTER. BRYCE!” she moves closer to me now. I smell popcorn and Dr. Pepper on her saliva, as she screams. She is screaming at me. Tiny wet bits of her anger hit my face.
Her spit is much warmer than the rain.
“They can’t send you. Tell them to send someone else! There must someone…. Someone who isn’t months away from becoming a father!”
“I can’t Connie. The client asked for me. It will only be three months. At most. If it goes well… Well, think of the University fund.” I say. But the words are not my own. My voice is different. Strained. I sound… stressed.
She—Connie—is crying now.
“What if the baby decides to come early?”
I don’t know what to say. I stand there half in, half out of the bus stop. The back parts of me are soaked to the bone. The front is dry, stoic, and unfeeling. But I want to fix this. It feels like I love this woman.
“I can’t do this alone, Walt. I won’t.”
The horn brings me back. A sound like an orchestra’s brass section, angrily blowing the same note. And holding onto it. The way we hold onto a jagged, painful memory for far, far too long.
“Oi, you taking that space, or what?”
The man with no hair on his head shouts behind me. His neck beard quivers as he shouts. I look back at the space. No mangled car. No marks on the pillar, aside from old ones. Faded now.
I pull the Suzuki into the space. I see the angry bearded bald man glaring at me in the wing mirror as he drives past. I turn the ignition off and the radio’s static goes with it.
(To be continued)
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