“Where are you going?” she had asked Joanne as she suddenly turned off the main route home.
She flicked the indicator lever and the light started flickering to the left. The cars stopped moving once more — a final fuck you from the traffic Gods before allowing Tina to be on her way. She sighed heavy. The ‘thump-thump’ noise of the windscreen wipers, the heavy beating of the rain on the windscreen, the occasional car horn sounding off out of frustration and now the tick-ticking of the indicators.
Tina screamed out loud; a noisy way of releasing the slow-building stress bubbling around the insides of her body. She put her head in her hands and screamed again — the damned frustration of not being able to get home. She looked up. Her scream hadn’t scared the traffic out of the way. She was still stuck.
#Godhatesme
2
Tina was finally able to breath a sigh of relief as she turned the corner. No cars in front of her, she put her foot to the pedal and started to relax. Finally — the feeling of making progress came over her. A far better feeling than the irritating frustration of feeling stuck to the spot.
The speed limit was thirty miles per hour and Tina was soon doing forty, despite it being a residential area. She didn’t care. Now, the only thing she cared about was getting home and going by the car behind her — practically sitting on her rear bumper — she wasn’t the only one to be in a hurry.
She eased off the accelerator a little. If she suddenly had to slam on her brake there was no way the person behind her would be able to stop in time. She muttered under her breath, it was idiots like these who tended to cause traffic black spots; all because they were in a hurry and accidentally drove into someone. The driver behind responded to her slight braking by sounding his horn in frustration. Tina muttered again and flicked the indicator down. The light on her vehicle warning the driver behind that she was about to pull to the side of the road. She accelerated a little — to give herself room to breathe — and then pulled up against the kerb, giving the car behind ample room to get by. She jumped as the driver wasted no time in speeding past her, sounding the horn as he did so.
#roadwarrior
Tina responded by hitting her own horn and screaming, “Fuck you!” at the driver, despite there being no chance for them to hear her. It just made her feel good, as though justice had been served. It didn’t matter to her that no one else knew justice had been dished out; it was strictly for her own benefit and amusement. Also, it was good stress relief — just as screaming at the top of her lungs had been when she was stuck in the motionless traffic. Still — that wasn’t how she usually dealt with people riding her arse like that. Usually — with idiots like that — she liked to slow right down to at least five miles per hour under the speed limit, just to annoy them more than necessary. The only reason she hadn't this time was because she was in a hurry to get home herself and — with visibility so poor, it would have been asking for trouble.
She waited a minute or so by the side of the road with the indicator still ticking in the background. Just long enough to give her heart a chance to calm down after being made to jump. And then — when feeling calmer — she pulled away and hit the road once more. She accelerated up to a steady speed — still higher than the enforced limit. The driver once behind and now in front — had all but disappeared with only the faint glow of his lights illuminated in the heavy downpour further down the road. The car disappeared around the next bend.
As Tina approached the bend, she eased off the gas and gently touched upon the brake. She knew these roads like the back of her hand and this was the last turning before the estate turned to hedges and bushes; city of Nottingham slowly turning to country. She also happened to know that it was a bitch of a turning and that — over the years — many a boy racer had come a cropper there, putting themselves into one of the trees and either killing themselves or the friends they carried in the passenger seats.
#theyneverlearn
Tina navigated the bend and drove on passing a car, parked up on the side. She noticed it was the idiot who had earlier overtaken her. She didn’t understand his hurry to overtake her if he was only going to pull up around the corner and yet she couldn’t resist… She thumped her hand down on the car’s horn with a satisfied giggle and a hope that she’d scared the shit out of the driver just as he had scared the shit out of her when he did it. Mission accomplished — she pressed her foot down on the accelerator and — once again — started to gather speed.
#winning
I I
On a quiet day Tina loved this road. The majority of the corners were gentle with great visibility meaning you had plenty of time to respond if you suddenly needed to slow for anything; such as other traffic or even animals in the road as had been known to happen. Along with the gentle curves, there were also plenty of long, uninterrupted straight parts too. Parts where you could really put your foot down — so long as you were vigilant about keeping an eye out for the speed-traps that had occasionally been put in place as a deterrent. Still, with the rain beating down heavily (still) — the chance of the police being out with their little speed cameras was slim to none. Most would be too busy dealing with whatever traffic accident had taken place — as was always the case when it rained. The rain comes, the drivers slow down and yet — somewhere — someone still manages to have a collision.
This road wasn’t perfect though. It was still longer than the other route home so you were doing unnecessary miles and there was always a danger of getting stuck behind a learner driver or — worse still — a tractor. Both were annoying in their own way and — if you found them — the journey would become that much longer and certainly more frustrating as you’d look for spots to overtake them.
A loud thumping noise from somewhere under the front of the car suddenly pulled Tina from her thoughts with a sudden jump and the steering wheel tried to snatch itself from her hands. Immediately she took her foot from the accelerator and let the car slow down at its own pace — too scared to press the brake pedal. The way the steering wheel was shaking in her hand, and the fact the car was trying to pull to the side, she knew straight away she had a flat. It hadn’t been her first. She also knew that — since last having a flat and having the tyres changed — she hadn’t replaced the spare.
“Shit,” she muttered as the car eventually stopped. “Shit! Shit! Shit! SHIT!”
She sat there a moment. She didn’t want to get out and look at the damage. Not least because it was raining but she knew there was nothing she could do about it — other than call for help and hope they wouldn’t take the whole night to get to her. The perfect end to what had already been a stressful day — not helped by the fact that it was getting darker outside, something which — in itself — was not helped by the big black clouds still hiding the heavens above.
Tina screamed out loud again. Another burst of frustration spilling out from within. She stopped and sat there a moment. A heavy sigh and she reached for the mobile phone. The good news was that the battery had 23 % remaining — more than enough to get someone out to come and rescue her. The bad news was that there was absolutely no signal. Of course not. She was in the middle of country roads. Why would there be signal. She tossed the phone back onto the passenger seat and sighed again. So much for that bath.