Our little expedition to discover what the mall had to offer ca to an abrupt halt at the seventh and last floor, and by that point, the layout of the shopping complex in its entirety had already beco ingrained into our skulls, with much of the three-hour downti whittled down to a asly one.
One hour left, and the question and answer ga that I've so heavily relied on up till now has been milked dryer than a corporate cow.
It served its purpose well enough, more than I could have hoped for actually. Slowly, surely, and gradually, Ash crept out of her little hidey-hole, not minding much anymore on letting her true feelings show without stifling down with a constant air of reluctance.
I'd very much like to keep this montum going, but the question was - what else is there to do in an hour's ti?
We kept our pace slow, keeping light conversation about the intrinsic properties of cheese and its vast potential as an ingredient to be used in pretty much every single food product, which for so reason fascinated her to no end, while in the anti my head scrounged about itself doing its utmost to co up sothing worthwhile to do before I run out the capabilities of cheese.
There's only so much that curdled milk can do for a discussion after all, and sadly it wasn't very good as a conversation piece, gets a bit too cheesy after a while.
Thankfully, God must have been in a giving mood today, for just as soon as I emptied my admittedly short canister of cheese-related facts, the answer to all life's problems ca barging before my very eyes like a car crash in slow motion.
Literally.
Two vehicles barreling towards each other at high speed - that was my solution.
We ca to a stop outside another expansive outlet, and Ash, a slave to her intrigue, slowly approached the sign hung above the entryway, her eyes squinting to better decipher the words displayed in a dazzling glare of neon lights.
She tried.
"Super Bu… hmm, bum - bumper? Whatever is a bumper, I wonder?"
Ash didn't let herself wonder for long, a second later, she spun her inquiring eyes towards and I, the all-knower of all things mundane, could only oblige.
"It's kinda like a car," I said.
Her ears perked up at once. "Cars, you say?"
"Yep," With a little a smirk, and a finger pointing forward, I directed her eager eyes onward. "Bumper cars."
Boom went another heavy collision, a reverberating echo of both tal and laughter gracing her twitching, wiggling ears, which further intensified, as she finally sighted the blocky-moving thing in action - spinning, drifting, crashing into walls and other blocky-moving lookalikes alongside with.
If disbelief could be calculated then Ash had already far surpassed any form of asurent it could possibly have.
I don't think she was even aware that she was moving again. It was as if the rumble of the bumper car's motor naturally compelled her towards its whirring embrace.
Against all odds, she actually managed to catch herself in ti, settling herself by the sidelines before she could beco an accessory to vehicular manslaughter because let's face it, if a car were to hit Ash, it won't be the passenger or the driver coming out of that crash scene unscathed…
Anyway, I drew up beside her, leaning my hands against the guardrails, expecting to hear so 'wow's and breathless 'ooo's of amazent, but no - Ash was too into it to even make a sound. Captivated by the runway of non-stop high octane blitz of motor engines.
Sotis I could never tell what she was thinking. Other tis it was simply clear as day. There were so days where I'd confused the sotis with the other tis and ended up with disastrous results.
Today, this ti, was not one of those tis.
It'd take a bigger idiot than to ss this one up.
"I rembered one ti you asking if you'd ever get the chance to ride one on your own soday."
Ash untethered her focus from the chaos, slowly turning her gaze over my way to find that a smile of encouragent awaited her.
"You still feel the sa?" I asked.
The glimr in her eyes, the continuous twitching on either side, they spoke her answer far better than her voice ever could.
"I do."
Bumper cars here were fortunately the two-seater types. One sits the passenger all snug and nice, while the other takes control of the mayhem machine and wreaks havoc in the field.
Instantly I knew which part was tailored for whom. I took my place, buckled in my seatbelt, and looked over past the vacant seat beside where the steering wheel still sat empty, it's driver just over yonder, standing in place, uncertainty filling her erald eyes.
"Master, I'm not so sure of…" She slightly adjusted the helt on her head. "You ntion it's no different from riding a horse?"
"Practically the sa thing," I piped back. "Only just a bit faster… and no saddles."
Despite my assurances, Ash still looked on at with a dubious stare. "I'm not sure I believe you…"
"Only one way to find out then, I suppose." I urged her on again. "Now or never, Ash."
An opportunity such as this wasn't sothing she'd pass up on so easily. Never say never and sure enough, one deep breath later and out surfaced a determined look on her face, braving a march forward, taking her rightful place by my side and gripping the steering wheel with both hands tight.
She was like a mixture of anticipation and trepidation rolled into one. Couldn't help but feel a little bad seeing the helpless state she was in. Probably should have given her a refresher course beforehand.
Welp, got a thirty-second countdown - better late than never.
"You got two pedals down by your feet," I said, pointing them out to her rapidly shifting eyes. "See them?"
Ash frantically nodded her head, desperately clinging on to my every word. "Yes, yes, I do… what purpose do they serve?"
"Left one's to accelerate, right one's to stop and reverse. You use the steering wheel to move around. Simple enough, right? Any questions?"
"This is not a horse, Master!" Ash exclaid.
"No questions then, alright!" I smiled, faced myself forward, and braced for impact. "Let's go!"
The blare of the buzzer signaled our start and Ash, in a state of panic stomped hard on the gas pedal, sending us propelling across the entire arena and crashing into the nearest wall.
If that wasn't enough, our little mishap painted a bullseye over our little bumper car, our opponents sensing fresh at in their domain.
The rumble of many, many engines drew closer and closer to our position.
For our sake, I decided to offer a piece of advice to my fumbling driver. "Think this is the part where you move us out of the way, Ash."
"Pedals!" She spouted out helplessly. "Horses do not have pedals! Master, this contraption is beyond my control!"
"Well yeah it's outta control you still got your foot on the go pedal!" I said. "Push it on the other one, Ash. Slam it down - wait no, don't slam it down! Do it slow - SLOWLY!"
Again, Ash smashed her foot on the reverse, flinging us so far and so fast towards the opposite direction that I'm surprised the sound barrier wasn't broken yet.
Another solid wall, another rough crash, and another reason why seatbelts save lives. Damn was whiplash a hell of a thing, my poor neck was about to beco an unfortunate martyr on safe driving.
Luckily enough, it seems most of our adversaries understand it'd be more of a risk coming after us than it was a reward, and steered clear of the runaway bumper car doing 360s in the corner.
I'm starting to regret this decision.
"What is…" I stifled down a gag. "What is 'slow' in Elf-speak?"
Ash kept the car spinning right round, doing uh… doing her best, I suppose.
"I'm trying, Master. This beast just refuse to be tad!"
Forget buses, looks I found my newest form of transport to detest.
"Your foot… pedals, Ash!" I bellowed. "Take them off first!"
"I already have, Master!"
I snapped upright, sudden panic in my eyes threatening to burst them out of my sockets. "What?!"
"I've already refrained from pushing any more pedals!" She shouted again.
So much I wanted to pretend that I did not just hear what I just heard, I couldn't have, right? How can we be spinning out of control without any montum?! It's impossible, IMPOSSIBLE.
Freaking Newton would be spinning in his grave if found about this breach in the laws of physics.
But just like dear ol' Issac himself, we were still spinning, we continued moving, and montum just kept on mon-ting.
With dread, I glanced downwards, and sure enough… not a single foot of hers was on any of the pedals whatsoever… leaving only one possible explanation for it.
"Ash, did you break the goddamn reverse pedal with your foot?!"
I looked back up and saw pure unbridled shock sweeping past Ash's paling expression, her terror-stricken eyes staring back at with disbelief of her own. "Did I?!"
Oh dear God...
Reviews
All reviews (0)