Tuesday May 1, 2007

LITERATURE
Matt Maxwell
© Matt Maxwell

Tuesday 01-May-2007 16:51

RETORT MAGAZINE ISSN 1445-7164

Going the Speed of Rapture

I.

Preston bows his chin to the gas tank, locks his arms, squeezes, like a nutcracker, his knees to the neon lizard painted tank, violently snaps the throttle of his recently broken-in 2006 Kawasaki ZX-10

and screams, man it’s fucking loud, through second gear, the acceleration eating his breath, thinning his vision from the sides like a tv going cold, the front wheel light, in the air, and it drops when he shifts to third, 110 mph and wormholing faster, the farm houses detritus specks in the peripheral, trees formless dichromatic blurs bleeding into the streaked green fields, 142 mph on a two-lane highway, this section swingarm straight and flat for 3 miles

—fourth gear, 157 mph, the bike the inside of a hornet’s hive, the wall of air splitting and screaming in defiance, a mutiny of bagpipes, his vision tunneled into a cardboard tube, beyond that a darkened gray slate—

—fifth gear, 173 mph, the engine still pulling, barely noticing the featherweight rider, worried more about the reinforced wind—

his adrenaline races laps in his bloodstream, a cadence with the bike’s speed, and it’s an addiction, a rapture, like listening to your favorite song in a sealed car, screaming at your lung’s capacity, the volume not loud enough

the wind roar around and in his helmet a whitewash static onslaught, boring into his ears, annihilating his mental voice

the bike’s engine a jet turbine (how far away can it be heard on this azure afternoon?), maniacal, screaming with elation at the freedom

at 181 mph (sixth gear) he relaxes the throttle, and the wind immediately surrounds the bullet, tames into submission, his speed plummeting, 169, the engine still a turbine banshee, 154, downshifts to fifth, raises like a gopher over the windscreen, defying his head and chest to the wind, 131, downshifts to fourth, the open fields gaining clarity, his vision restored as the g-force blackout tumbles behind him, sees a yellow diamond sign with a black squiggly line, 108…and now he eases the back brake, downshifting, 95…he’s going so slow the engine chuckles at the boring gait; 72, and this is agonizingly fucking slow, his plastered smile now a grimace, Preston feels he could run this fast

*

II.

Sheriff Ohmbach sees the onlooker gaggle, the miniscule used-car lot scrunched onto the narrow shoulder, leaving the two-lane road a one-lane gauntlet, the people clumped in groups, no hands or mouths moving, all facing the same direction, but he doesn’t see a motorcycle, so he furrows his brow, pulls behind a Tahoe and walks to the nearest clump; the closest man sees the uniform, says, “Hope you brought a spatula—that’s the only thing that’ll pick up the mess” as he squints, and Ohmbach nods and continues walking, the clumps staring as he passes, still not seeing

the motorcycle hisses, a roach farm of broken and bent parts, plastic bent off the bike like torn wings, the muffler a broken hinged leg, the levers and mirrors skewed antennae, the windshield a crushed head, the dented tank a smooshed thorax, the seeping fluids the blood; fifteen yards beyond the bike, in the open field, a visceral mass of jelly—red, brown, and yellow poured into a concrete truck and dumped over white sticks (from overhead it might appear as a target, this multi-colored heap on a green backdrop), a fresh-baked pizza put in a box and shaken and then thrown on a table for Ohmbach to approach first, bile like magma slinking up fissures, his hand on the walkie-talkie but his vocal cords locked…he clamps a clammy palm to his mouth, damming the flow that threatens—oh my fucking god that used to be a person; what is, what was this thing?; how are they going to pick this up?—but within three feet, his knees aching and cold, like someone injected ice water behind the kneecaps, he hears a moan, and thinks it issued from himself, subconsciously, but it resonates again, a moan clawing at the baby breeze but definitely audible—there’s no way in Heaven this guy is still alive!—and the glob shifts, like a crab under churning water, rolls, and everyone is stunned mute except for the one girl who screams until a hand plasters her mouth, and the glob creeps to a square shape, gelatinous goo dripping from its sides, and then it raises, becomes an L, and Ohmbach recognizes a helmet, angular useless limbs trying to touch it, and Ohmbach rushes around, talking to him, punching in on the handset and ordering an ambulance, and gingerly unlatches the helmet

are you okay?

aawwhhhhhhhhh nnnnnnnnnhhhhhhhhh

be still; lie down; an ambulance is on the way

nnhhhnnnhhhhhhhhh

what’s your name?

Preston

what hurts, Preston?

bloody, bathed in a horror movie spaghetti fruit salad, from the shoulders down, some of it streaked on his face, his swimming eyes focus on the voice before him, thinks about asking of his bike, answers, slowly:

my shoulders; back; right leg; left arm

do you know what happened?

deer

huh?

deer: ran out in the road; I missed the first one, the second one

(it’s rarely the first deer that does the damage, it’s the trailing deer, who drivers don’t see because they’re watching the bounding—as their hearts bound—terrified deer scamper to safety)

I saw; a third one leapt in front me, and I think I speared him

do you know how fast you were going?

maybe one-ten

chunks continue to slide off the stained jacket; Ohmbach stares at him, doesn’t notice the surrounding goo, the white sticks and brown tufts, hears the shuffle of feet as gaggle fragments sidle closer to witness the unbelievable-

Ohmbach persuades him to lie down—away from the soup—and he discerns the bones and hair of the deer, impelled by and wrapped around the rider, follows the trail of broken grass back to the road, finds in a ditch a dismembered and empty deer, the head (tongue lolling out) and neck and shoulder nine feet away from the haunches; he walks back to the rider

and when the breeze abates, the buzz of flies can be heard, the aroma of death can be smelled, and the crowds, sated with a glimpse of the just desserts and the miraculous in one setting, amble to their cars and file, slowly, back to the highway, and Ombach sits beside Preston in a grass field with an overgrown, mangled lizard green wreckage and a rent deer carcass

while the clouds whisk over a ground spinning in the opposite direction

 

Tuesday 01-May-2007 16:51

RETORT MAGAZINE ISSN 1445-7164

FICTION
Matt Maxwell
© Matt Maxwell

My publishing credits span the gamut, from business journals to horror to mainstream to experimental. My fiction writing has appeared in various webzines, including eyeshot.net, thievesjargon.com, flashquake.org, stickyourneckout.com, and uber.nu.