The Last Mile – Another Tale

This is not one of the “Three in the Morning”. It’s been banging around in my head for at least ten years so I suppose it deserves to be let out. See what you think.

The Last Mile

My battered, some would say tatty, old Mini saloon seems to have discovered a new lease of life and is eating up the miles towards the faint glow in the sky, which I assume is my destination, in effortless fashion. Like me the Mini is well past it’s sell by date and I really ought to consider changing it but, like a well-worn jacket, it suits me. Besides, I get the niggling feeling that it may be too late for all that. The empty road stretches ahead, straight as an arrow, the Cats Eyes sparkling in the headlights. We seem to be going through a cutting, with embankments on either side, almost black in the night. It must be very late because there is no traffic in either direction. This should be slightly eerie but it just feels…peaceful. What the car and I need, I decide, is some music so I lean across the empty passenger seat to switch on the radio but it refuses to select a station and just produces static.

I start to become aware of an unpleasant sensation in my chest. Pain growing, taking over. I seem to be laying half on my side. I need to speak, to tell them that I am here but there is something vaguely plastic in my mouth and throat and something is hitting against my chest. Bright white lights and sounds assault me. A distant banshee wailing, thumps and shrieking of metal being ripped apart. Snatches of speech like a broken record. “…Traffic …girl… Unit…fatal
…on Granddad, don’t.…bike….clear!..cutters…in…” Roaring red hot pain in my chest and both arms can’t move and I can’t BREATHE!!!

My old Mini saloon seems to have discovered a new lease of life and is eating up the miles towards our destination in effortless fashion. I glance across at the girl in the passenger seat. She is dishevelled and dirty, as if she has been rolled in mud, but she has a lovely smile. I am forgiven; after all we are fellow travellers. I have the disquieting thought that she is only fifteen or sixteen years old and far too young to be making this journey with an old codger like me. I gaze through the windscreen at the glow in the sky, closer now, and with sudden ice water clarity I realise what our destination is and just how long our journey is going to be.

The End