Cryptic
Active Member
- Joined
- Aug 6, 2001
- Messages
- 308
This is a little something I wrote a few weeks back for my English 265 class that after showing it to a friend and getting his enthused response I thought you might enjoy with the recent dearth of posts by that busy genius Raven. I hope you might take at least a small bit of pleasure from reading it:
Dusk has long since passed and the streets are illuminated with twin globes of light, whether they are bright and white or glaring red. Cruising along a certain deep tone catches your ear and you instantly recognize it as the exhaust note of a powerful car. From behind a long, low and sleek car slides up next to you and blips the throttle causing the back end to squat and the vehicle to lunge forward for a moment. Your pulse instantly quickens as your hand grips the steering wheel just a bit tighter. As if in answer to some secret prayer deep within your heart the light several hundred yards ahead changes yellow and shortly turns red. Almost casually twin brake pedals are depressed and thousands of pounds of steel, aluminum and fiberglass are brought to a halt, idling in front of this red-eyed Cyclops. You are now completely focused on your opponent. It is obvious he wants to race as he looks over at you and smirks, revving his motor. Your palms are sweaty you realize as you take the last precaution and look around for oncoming traffic, pedestrians and perhaps most importantly the police.
Ah, the police. Those enforcers of the law who are sworn to keep people like you from participating in activities such as these. You know there is an inherent danger with taking hundreds of horsepower and pound-feet of torque to project thousands of pounds of steel in a straight line for several thousand feet, yet you also feel a need, a burning desire if you will, to do just that. Memories of drivers’ education courses, news flashes about horrible accidents and stories told by friends and acquaintances alike run briefly through your mind. Nonetheless, you mentally prepare yourself as out of the corner of your eye you see the light for oncoming traffic begin to turn; it goes red and you countdown: three-two-one. The Cyclops turns green and you are ready for him with your foot pressing hard onto the throttle. For a moment squealing tires and the roar of power being unleashed deafens you but then in a rush of adrenaline you are lost with the task at hand.
You don’t even need to look as you can just feel that you’re slowly pulling away from the other car. It almost seems that for those few seconds you are breaking free of the laws of physics and taking in a small bit of immortality. A glance in the mirror confirms your intuitions and the feeling of victory washes over you. That’s it really, those feelings. It is what we do it for in the end. We want to feel free and boundless and when your foot comes down on that gas and you pull away you have just won a modern day duel albeit still dangerous in its own ways. There is that knowledge that if we get caught we may go to jail or be fined; perhaps even have our licenses revoked denying us the opportunity for future challenges. Deep within us we know that if something goes wrong, be it on our side or theirs that there is a risk of damage, injury or even death. We lay our civic and moral duties by the wayside every time such an incident occurs. It is continually an unresolved conflict. The issue tears at us, yet we cannot seem to help ourselves.
The rush, the feeling of power and the wash of victory mean so much. Countless hours are spent preparing for those few seconds and if we were to give it up then we would be giving up not only those rare moments, but also a way of life. We know we have a duty to avoid these confrontations at all costs and we acknowledge them every time. There is a compromise we make with every race by checking first for traffic and then for pedestrians. This is followed by a look at the road conditions to see if things are damp or dry and whether it remains straight and smooth enough up ahead for the race to be as safe as it might be. The only things that are hard to judge are the lack of skill in the other driver and a mechanical failure coupled with the small risk that you have missed some detail while you were checking things.
Is it worth it?
Dusk has long since passed and the streets are illuminated with twin globes of light, whether they are bright and white or glaring red. Cruising along a certain deep tone catches your ear and you instantly recognize it as the exhaust note of a powerful car. From behind a long, low and sleek car slides up next to you and blips the throttle causing the back end to squat and the vehicle to lunge forward for a moment. Your pulse instantly quickens as your hand grips the steering wheel just a bit tighter. As if in answer to some secret prayer deep within your heart the light several hundred yards ahead changes yellow and shortly turns red. Almost casually twin brake pedals are depressed and thousands of pounds of steel, aluminum and fiberglass are brought to a halt, idling in front of this red-eyed Cyclops. You are now completely focused on your opponent. It is obvious he wants to race as he looks over at you and smirks, revving his motor. Your palms are sweaty you realize as you take the last precaution and look around for oncoming traffic, pedestrians and perhaps most importantly the police.
Ah, the police. Those enforcers of the law who are sworn to keep people like you from participating in activities such as these. You know there is an inherent danger with taking hundreds of horsepower and pound-feet of torque to project thousands of pounds of steel in a straight line for several thousand feet, yet you also feel a need, a burning desire if you will, to do just that. Memories of drivers’ education courses, news flashes about horrible accidents and stories told by friends and acquaintances alike run briefly through your mind. Nonetheless, you mentally prepare yourself as out of the corner of your eye you see the light for oncoming traffic begin to turn; it goes red and you countdown: three-two-one. The Cyclops turns green and you are ready for him with your foot pressing hard onto the throttle. For a moment squealing tires and the roar of power being unleashed deafens you but then in a rush of adrenaline you are lost with the task at hand.
You don’t even need to look as you can just feel that you’re slowly pulling away from the other car. It almost seems that for those few seconds you are breaking free of the laws of physics and taking in a small bit of immortality. A glance in the mirror confirms your intuitions and the feeling of victory washes over you. That’s it really, those feelings. It is what we do it for in the end. We want to feel free and boundless and when your foot comes down on that gas and you pull away you have just won a modern day duel albeit still dangerous in its own ways. There is that knowledge that if we get caught we may go to jail or be fined; perhaps even have our licenses revoked denying us the opportunity for future challenges. Deep within us we know that if something goes wrong, be it on our side or theirs that there is a risk of damage, injury or even death. We lay our civic and moral duties by the wayside every time such an incident occurs. It is continually an unresolved conflict. The issue tears at us, yet we cannot seem to help ourselves.
The rush, the feeling of power and the wash of victory mean so much. Countless hours are spent preparing for those few seconds and if we were to give it up then we would be giving up not only those rare moments, but also a way of life. We know we have a duty to avoid these confrontations at all costs and we acknowledge them every time. There is a compromise we make with every race by checking first for traffic and then for pedestrians. This is followed by a look at the road conditions to see if things are damp or dry and whether it remains straight and smooth enough up ahead for the race to be as safe as it might be. The only things that are hard to judge are the lack of skill in the other driver and a mechanical failure coupled with the small risk that you have missed some detail while you were checking things.
Is it worth it?
