Satnav - chapter one (draft)

Satnav – Chapter 1


“I’m finished now and on my way home. See you soon. Love you!”

He put down his mobile and started the car. In his imagination it roared into life like a Ferrari but that would not be an accurate way to describe the process, which involved some whirring, a fair bit of spluttering and that grinding sound that cars make when you turn the starter a fraction too long. He cringed, both inwardly and, if anyone had been watching, visibly and risked a look around. No-one was watching. He breathed a sigh of relief as he really hated being embarrassed by his car.
As he pulled away a loud clattering signalled the loss of a mostly insignificant piece of bodywork.

He pulled into the traffic, now just another car, all noises camouflaged in the general chaos which is rush hour.

“At the junction, turn left” the Satnav instructed in its’ authoritative way, which assumed obedience, and in this case, at least, received it.

Before setting off he had programmed his favourite toy to take him home by the shortest route avoiding main roads. He thought that at rush hour this would also be the fastest route, at least it seemed logical.
In the town centre the instructions came quickly, left then right then left again. Around the roundabout, twice, driver error, and into a maze of back streets. He blinked twice, checked the Satnav screen, shrugged and continued, as instructed.
The streets passed by without registering more than a general impression of shabbiness and sameness.

Several minutes later he noticed a few more trees appearing, and without any warning he was plunged, astonished, into countryside. Surprised, he stopped the car.

It was not the appearance of countryside which he was finding so incomprehensible, but the disappearance of the road.
He opened the door and stepped out, turning to take in the view. It was certainly a view to take in, stunning in fact. It just wasn’t the one he would have expected to see on the way home from work. For that matter, it wasn’t the one he would have expected to see on his way home from anywhere.
In front of the car meadows and woodland stretched as far as he could see, but as he turned there were mountains, not nice round English mountains, BIG pointy foreign type mountains. He leant back on the car, feeling with relief, its familiar cold and grainy paintwork.

If he closed his eyes he felt fine, the car felt fine, it must be fine. He opened them again. It wasn’t fine, it was nothing like fine. In fact the word fine was swept from his vocabulary with an impressive shriek.

The sudden noise made him jump and look around again to find the owner of the shriek. There she was, an impressive owner of an impressive shriek, around six foot tall, looking down at him with an expression of horror. He stepped back away from the car and the large woman on the other side of it. She continued to look down in horror and he realised that it was not himself she was shrieking at in such an impressive manner, it was his car.

For a moment he was quite miffed. He knew his car wasn’t much to look at but it wasn’t that bad, especially if the person who appeared to be so offended by it wasn’t much to look at either. Well maybe that wasn’t quite true, after all, there was a lot of her, and it was oddly dressed, if thankfully, adequately.
He realised suddenly that the shrieking had stopped and been replaced with an odd, asthmatic, sobbing.
His next step backwards was interrupted by a mischievously placed rock and he sat down with a squeak. Tears appeared as his teeth bit sharply into his tongue and he squeaked again, in a disturbingly unmanly way. Blushing furiously he looked up to see that his clumsy behaviour had brought him to the attention of the shrieker.
“Hi” he said, feeling as he said it that it was quite a stupid and utterly inadequate introduction.

She blinked at him and continued to wheeze and sob. Suddenly, moving faster than she had any right to, she turned and began running away. It wasn’t a long run only about 100 metres before she slowed to a staggering walk and then slumped to the ground.

He was now faced with a dilemma, should he go over and check if she was alright, or not. There was a strong possibility that seeing him close up again could cause more panic. However, he was worried that she might be in difficulty. It had not occurred to him, yet, that he had as much right as anyone to be panicking.

He thought about getting back into the car and driving off. For a moment this was the favourite, but no, he couldn’t do it. He shrugged and jogged slowly towards his new acquaintance.

As he reached her he crouched down and gently placed his hand on her shoulder.
“Excuse me, er Miss. I am sorry if I frightened you, I didn’t mean to.”
She looked up at him, with astonishingly blue eyes.
“Could you tell me where I am?” he continued.
She blinked again before opening her mouth as he braced himself for another shriek.

“No” she sighed

“No?” he couldn’t help repeating.

“No” she looked at him sadly.

Deciding that another “No” at this point would be a “No” too far. He closed his very open mouth and sat down.

He thought for a moment or, in fact, several moments.  He was lost now, well beyond his comfort zone and well into the twilight zone.

.... to be continued....