"Get ready," she said.
Then we were off, with me being the last car in the pack of 6, blistering the street between skyscrapers on a beautiful summer night. My windows were down and I heard screaming engines and tortured tires echoing in the canyons of this metropolis. In front of me, #5 drifted too far to the right and clipped three small trees in front of an office building but drifted back into the street and sped on. He had slowed enough to allow me to blast past him and I tossed him a casual salute with one finger as my Maserati slid by. Then I was on #4 so fast that it felt like an explosion of lights coming at my eyes. I nudged the wheel slightly left and passed between #4 and an oncoming taxi. I heard my spotter, Angie, shout.
"I'm glad I'm not in that car!"
I was now gradually overhauling #3, which was a motorcycle. As I caught him we were blitzing down a narrow lane between rows of gorgeous Cherry trees in full bloom. Then I saw an impossible curve ahead and tapped my brake at the same time I cut the wheel to the right and drifted through the turn at 180 MPH, then tapped the brake a second time to straighten out on the road. The cycle was on my left and I turned hard left and put him into a concrete divider. The crash looked and sounded horrible but I was a mile away before his body stopped rolling. A pity. Angie laughed and said, "Another one bites the rust."
I hit my nitro boost and caught #2 just as my speedometer sank into 220 MPH, just like a big set of teeth sinks into a bone. Then the road disappeared under us both as we traveled about a hundred feet in the air before landing on a wide cinder path in a city park. #2 was scraping sides with me as we rolled across a quaint wooden bridge between yet more Cherry trees. Sweat popped out on my forehead and my hands were locked on my steering wheel. #2 was trying to force me into a wreck. At the speed we were traveling, it would kill us both.
I hit the nitro boost again and emptied it, but it was enough of a burst to get me untangled with #2. Only he wasn't #2 any more because I was. I could hear Angie over the buffeting wind.
"You've got one on your tail!"
Then he was alongside me, one of my former victims, as we flashed onto an 8-lane highway, brilliantly lit. We were now side by side with #1 about a quarter of a mile ahead.
My heart was pounding like the wind in my ears and #1's German taillights were growing in my vision. They were growing way too fast. The Audi beside me was steering into me, trying to crash me into the buildings on my right. I hit several big concrete planters full of lovely flowers in front of a hotel and slammed back over into him. I forced him into the back of the #1 car with a crash that sounded like a bomb. Then I was free and there was a new #1 as the flying glass and metal disappeared behind me. I crossed the finish line and Angie cried out.
"Way to go!"
"I didn't come here to lose, baby," I muttered as I closed my I-Pad and walked to the bedroom, flexing my stiff fingers. When I reached the bedroom I stretched out on the bed alongside my wife.
"I can't believe I got that game for 99 cents," I said to my wife. She patted my arm.
"That's nice, honey," she said as she went back to sleep.
From the author's green retreat, I'm CE Wills.
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