The Lover's Parable Through A Seven World Journey (7 page)

There was no response from Sofia this time. Assuming she was asleep, he continued the drive without saying another word.

A tugging sensation at Sofia’s shoulder accompanied a faint calling from the old man, bringing her out of the deep sleep and into that semi-conscious state between reality and the fantastic. In her dreamy state of awareness, she could hear John and Mr. Sanders speaking to one another, as friends converse openly and frankly among themselves. Rubbing the crusty build-up from the corners of her eyes, she expected the voices to fade away into oblivion as she began to fully awaken upon the bed of her room, but the rumbling of the motor beneath her head, and the white-gray metallic roof staring her in the face from above, reminded her that the events of the day were more than a mere game of the mind.

“Wake up, girl. It’s time to get up,” John’s voice grumbled as she felt him shaking her shoulder.

“Is she awake yet?” Mr. Sanders asked with a tone mixed in anxiety and frustration.

“Yes, sir.”

The haziness of Sofia’s awareness made it difficult to fully comprehend what exactly was taking place around her.

John sat up, clutching his ribs. “Mr. Sanders said we’re almost there.”

“Almost there? Where are we going?”

The old man looked back over the front seat and said, “
Your final
destination
.”

Pointing at the cargo straps situated beside the seatbelts, the old man was wide-eyed and, for the first time, showing his fears openly through the tones of his voice.

“You need to secure yourselves in tightly. I’m really not sure how hard of an impact we’re going to have,” he commanded
nervously.

“An impact?” John questioned, “What impact?”

“Are we going to crash?” Sofia asked, sitting up.

“Trust me, please, children,” Mr. Sanders interrupted, “Everything’s going to be alright. You’re about to receive the gift of freedom… something of which neither of you have ever really had. The rooftop was only a small sampling of what’s in store for the two of you. You just need to trust me, okay?”

Sofia did not respond. She looked to John as if she wanted him to make the call as to whether or not they were going to go along with the old man’s scheme. With the blueness of her eyes staring back at him, the contrasting red streaks strung around her eyelids indicating the heavy exhaustion hanging over her, John hesitated to answer. Brushing back the long strands of hair dangling in front of her face, Sofia tucked them behind her ear and whipped her eyes towards Mr. Sanders and then back to her companion, as if to say “
Well, aren’t you going to answer
him?
”

John was at a crossroad: his agreement to participate in Mr. Sanders’ plan, if everything worked out as the old man wanted it to, meant that there would be no small cubicle waiting for him in some near-future, adult life, no small grovel to live in. His wife would not lose the luster of her hair, or the fair complexion of her youthful skin to the life of a slave for a master of which neither he nor she would ever see. In essence, things would be the way he always wanted them to be. But, to refuse his help would mean that all these terrible things would be the reality of his future. It seemed too obvious as to which direction he should set his feet to walk. But, the choice was his. And each path had to have its own moral consequence. The causal nexus of each one was too expansive to comprehend the differing outcomes, and John was feeling too inadequate to carry the responsibility that was being placed upon his shoulders. Which type of life did he want to live? An opportunity was being granted to him, to actualize the potential of anything he chose within the realm of what is humanly possible under the given circumstances. Sofia’s eyes were still in the waiting. John had to act fast. He could not delay any longer. Mr. Sanders needed an answer.

“Okay, then,” he said. “What do you want us to do?”

“Leave it to me for now, John,” the old man responded with a nervous smile, “You’ll have plenty more decisions to deal with in the coming days. Just quickly buckle in. Secure yourselves well. We’re getting close.”

Lying down and squeezing himself into the back of the seat, John reached down, helping Sofia to climb up from the floor beside him. Cuddling as close together as they could press their bodies, beginning at their legs, they tightened the cargo straps and the seatbelts around themselves. They were nearly complete with the securing detail up to their mid-torsos when a strange vibration from the engine compartment began rattling the vehicle.

The sense of speed that Sofia first experienced at the outset of their Highway commute was far less intense than what she was feeling at the present moment.

“Are you two almost finished?” Mr. Sanders yelled over the roar of the engine.

The vehicle shifted into another gear, and the acceleration of the transporter began to cause a strange, almost nauseating, sensation in their stomachs.

“We’re almost done,” John fired back.

Pulling Sofia’s head down into his chest, he gave a firm yank on the final strap that provided the security over their shoulders.

“We’re ready.”

Weaving in and out of the traffic, Mr. Sanders focused all his attention on his end target. It would all fall upon the timing. He needed the vehicle to accelerate faster. He needed an opening, a clear and direct path, unhindered by the other machines on the Highway. With only a few minutes left, he had to think his plan through, to get everything in order. There could be no mistakes. This was probably the last chance for anyone on the planet to experience the joy of freedom.

As his heart began to race and his senses became keener, the awareness of Mr. Sanders’ surroundings intensified. He knew what the most important detail was that the proposal needed to succeed: a divine intervention.

The appropriate time to veer off course, to squeeze into the unoccupied space between the empty vehicles lining the Highway, to collide with the walls at the proper angle, was fast approaching. Whatever the fastest obtainable speed their transporter was capable of, he thought, it would probably be the minimum needed to penetrate the concrete upon impact.

“Everybody hold on tight,” he yelled, checking the straps that secured his own body to the seat.

Holding her hands to her ears as the high-pitched grinding of the engine became almost deafening, Sofia pressed her head tighter into John’s chest. His eyes were tightly shut. And, with Sofia held so close to him, if Death itself were to find them on this day, he knew there would be no regrets.

Metallic components of the vehicle’s exterior were stripping away, crashing into the passing vehicles, throwing trails of sparks off the road and walls of the Highway, as the vibration of the wobbling tires began to cause the transporter to self destruct and fall apart.

“We’re getting closer,” Mr. Sanders mumbled as the area ahead, where there was just enough of a bend in the road, a slight curve where they could make a nearly direct impact with the wall, came into view.

With the accelerator forced to the floor, the vehicle bore forward, smoking and fragile. There were now only a few hundred meters to impact. A transporter ahead suddenly jumped into his lane, causing the old man to gasp at the fact that the driver had unknowingly situated himself in a hazardously oriented position. Mr. Sanders had only seconds to decide: decelerate, and get behind the new obstacle, or else make an attempt to pass it.

With a deceleration being completely out of the question, knowing that he had to have the maximum force behind him when he collided with the wall, he pushed ahead, despite the fact that he would be cutting close to missing the bend altogether.

As he began gaining on the vehicle, it became immediately apparent that once he pulled in front of it, the driver would not be able to brake fast enough. He would be forced to pile headlong into their transporter’s tail end: a benefit to them by giving more than enough energy to break through the Highway’s wall, but the collision would probably kill the innocent man, as Mr. Sanders could clearly see that the poor sod was not wearing his safety
harness.

“Fifty meters,” he said, grumbling through his clenched teeth.

Upon hearing the words, John tightened his grip around his girl for the last time. There was nothing more he could do to prepare for the coming destruction.

This was the consummation of Mr. Sanders’ venture, the end of all things in his life of which he could have a direct, rational influence. As he passed the final transporter, there came a single, fraction of a second, when eye contact was made between him and the other vehicle’s operator. It was at this moment, as if he entered into the domain of the infinite, where there is no end and no beginning, and all the motions in the world that are encapsulated in the realm of time come to a stand still, that a mental snap-shot of the final, sedate expression of the stranger’s face was captured in his mind. Knowing that this man was not going to survive through to the end of the day, Mr. Sanders wondered if the operator would have even cared had he been given that piece of knowledge before leaving for work this morning.

Before the thought had been given the opportunity to make its entrance into that great expanse of the brain, the memory vault which stores the experiences of the days of living within the world, the old man cut the steering wheel sharply, throwing the transporter aside, making the desperate attempt to cast a straight path to the wall. The front bumper of the stranger’s vehicle caught onto their rear section in a violent contorted motion. Metal to metal, the two vehicles fused into one uncontrolled, speeding mass.

Thrown back across their lane of origin and skidding perpendicular to the direction of the flow of traffic, there was another impact by an unseen vehicle whose single passenger’s screams were momentarily heard, before being suddenly cut short.

The overhead lights, flashing in strobe-like sequence, passed through the windows, revealing in one fleeting second, the impact site passing by… they had missed their mark!

“Hold on,” Mr. Sanders screamed, as he gave up control of the vehicle to the laws of nature.

The rubber of their tires shredded under the shearing force exerted against their machine, scraping its rims across the asphalt in a show of glowing sparks, as they slammed into the empty vehicles parked at the edge of the outer lane. Hurtled into the opposing traffic, they impacted another transporter headlong, sending their vehicle into a wild spin.

The sounds of tearing metal and shattering glass, accompanied by muffled screams and splintering crates, filled the Highway as they rebounded off another transporter, whose occupant crashed through his own windshield, splattering on their front hood before disappearing into the smoke and mayhem.

Piling upon one another, the automobiles of the Highway were crumpling and spinning among the ensuing chaos, their drivers blinded by the dark, cloudy debris filling the tunnel. Tumbling end over end, their transporter came to an abrupt stop. With the smoky air and blood smeared upon the windows obscuring visibility, John and Sofia still had that odd sensation that they were moving, even though they were not. Their equilibrium was askew: there was no way to discern as to whether they were upside down or right-side up. Another sudden blow to the front of the vehicle sent them into an erratic spin accompanied by more crushing and twisting of metal. The rotational motion suddenly stalled, all movement of their transporter finally ceased as it butted up against a mass of steel and glass.

Oddly bright, yet familiar, bars of light that became visible through the back window accompanied the sounds of rocks and gravel falling upon the roof above them.

After a moment of disbelief at the unforeseen turmoil that he had initiated, Mr. Sanders, taking in the sounds of sirens and yelling, screaming men and women hidden among the black smoke-filled Highway, the screeching tires and accompanying grinding metal and shattering glass, knew that the devastation that he had caused was still an ongoing phenomena in the distance.

“Is everyone okay back there?” he panted and coughed.

Silence was the only answer. The transporter was dark and lifeless. The old man unbuckled himself, rotating his neck around in an attempt to stretch away the stiffness that had settled in. Leaning back against the headrest, he struggled to take in a breath of air through the thick, polluted atmosphere.

The silence of the children was finally broken by the sound of the bits of gravel and glass, which had slowly seeped in through the shattered windows, being brushed aside. A movement from behind him, buckles unhinging, gave him the relief he was looking
for.

“John? Sofia? Is everything alright?” he questioned.

“We’re fine,” John spoke coughing and spitting.

“What are we going to do, now?” Sofia inquired fearfully, with the same hacking that had overcome her companion.

Climbing into the back seat, Mr. Sanders followed after the brightness emanating from behind them, leading him to its source between the thick puffs of smoke. Squinting tightly as a heavy breeze cleared the blackness away for a brief moment, he was suddenly flooded with the light of the Savior. There it was, just out of reach, visible through the series of twisted, metallic partitions and shards of glass: the trees! The rear end of the stranger’s transporter had penetrated through the wall.

“Help me to carefully break out the rest of the window. We have to work quickly,” he commanded them. “ It’s the only way out.”

As the glass was already shattered, very little effort was required to kick their way through it. Removing pieces of the torn upholstery, they covered up the remaining sharp edges that protruded from the pane. Squeezing his way through, John could feel the heat of the Savior as intermittent beams of light fell upon him. Reaching back for another large piece of fabric, he assisted Sophia out of their wrecked vehicle and onto the hood of the stranger’s transporter. Seeing the dead man inside, bloody and torn, in brief glimpses as the light passed through the smoke, John dropped a large piece of fabric covering over him, cautiously concealing the corpse from Sofia’s sight.