The Very Brief History of My First Car

  
Reflections of power lines against a June blue sky began to bend oddly across the metallic gloss of her burgundy hood. The road ahead had suddenly become an unfocused white background lost in my peripheral vision as I watched the reflected lines bend, and re-bend. It was the maiden voyage of my 1967 Mustang, and I’d already struck an iceberg. A ripple first appeared at the far corner just above the right headlight, and it began to grow. Folding metal was coming at me like waves on the ocean. Flakes of paint instead of foam capped each breaker as they approached. It was 1977, and thus it wasn’t the Mustang’s maiden voyage, but rather my maiden voyage in a car of my very own. For fourteen glorious minutes, from the time it was insured at Allstate to the time on the police report (12:14 pm,) it was all mine, and I couldn’t wait to get it home. Graduation was just two days away, and the rearview mirror that I would soon hang my blue and gold S.H.S. Class of ’77 tassel on was now being ripped from the windshield by the side of my head. Through the broken glass a white station wagon came into focus, and then faded away.