Faded

It was a good day. I watched the staggered horizon as the lazy golden clouds that had graced me with their presence now left. As they drifted away over the treetops, flat, dark beasts rolled in to darken the scene.
An ancient yet prized possession of mine, the apple red beauty smiled back in the failing yet brilliant sunlight. As I dropped into the embrace of the leather seat, I breathed heavily as though one would after a long run. I turned the key in the ignition, and I was rewarded by the comforting rumble of the engine. Throwing it into gear, I squinted toward the winding road and swung my 82 Monte Carlo onto the two-lane wooded avenue. Grass swayed to either side of me as I caressed the deep lines of the street with my eyes. It bent to my will, falling under my tires without my having to turn the coarse, aged steering wheel.
The eight cylinders under the hood purred with pride, vibrating along the length of the car, as the motor throttled with a regular rhythmic bass, on a majestic promenade. At every turn the engine growled at the double lines, to be sure that they kept their distance. The road ahead beckoned me. When I couldn't see over the next hill, I persuaded the pedal to the floor, finding comfort on the carpet interior. The degrees of the turns became increasingly high, and the lines violently, if ever, answered the warning of my vehicle. Sometimes, they drew me too close, sometimes over; or pushed, pushed me farther away than necessary.
I now had to fight the steering wheel to find pavement after the curve. The Monte Carlo ducked and wove through the asphalt, whistled over the air trapped in the potholes under my hot rubber tires. The wind tickled as it whispered in my ear and teased my hair, violating geometric rules as caution was thrown to the wind, instinct was threatened and expanded, my destiny lay on the gambled outcome of the street ahead of me.
Lights and sounds grazed my senses as I fell into a liquid waltz with the black surface-no, a tango, as it grasped me tightly for a romantic instant then spun me away in a series of lunges and steps. Falling into the seat as my machine hugged for an instant, I was soon suspended in a nauseating air, my innards finding my throat, as my tires let their loving grip on the road go. My four feet ran on air as my hood whined in discomforted confusion. The road and I found each other in an ecstatic reunion, rubber screaming across both lanes as my impending rhythm returned.
We ate the road now, hungering for what lie beyond sight and beyond that, to the point that we didn't care where we were, only that it wasn't where we were a moment ago. An animal, ruthless and uncaring to the wishes of the surroundings or competition, I anticipated the blacktop's reactions or plans to throw me abroad.
A delicate hand brushed my shoulder and gentle, dry lips rapidly moved across my ear. Turning to listen, I saw what was out the passenger, should I say passengerless, window, and nothing else. My wildly dilating and contracting eyes swept back to the road. For one devastating moment I saw what was about to happen. The brink of the abyss approached me with such aggression that I had no time to strike. I left the road, the land, the earth, the opponent to gravity. For several wrenching heartbeats we flew through the air. I nearly believed that before I was mistaken. That I was truly a bird and nothing else - a giant eagle with a massive span of buttery feathers and rustl....
I looked ahead and realized that I had no wings. For sure I would not sprout pinions and fly to my perch, for I saw the ground rushing at me at such an inevitable rate. My pulse stopped in my ears and for one deafening split second of hopelessness I felt myself crumbling into Mother Earth, who, together with gravity, brought my fate.