cool dry place

There are race cars in the mall today. I walked in here at five minutes to eleven, still yawning, and stopped eight steps in. The cars lurked motionless behind kiosks and directories and potted plants, the gray-green fluorescent dawn glinting of their glossy plastic hoods, their logo decals placed like war paint on their blank, expressionless windshields. It felt like an ambush, as if the cars had stolen in in the dark of night to wait for their mark. Like ninjas.

I paused to take stock of my recent activities. Had I angered any sinister, generically Asian gangsters or corporate warlords recently? What reasons could Edelbrock and Craftsman and Leon’s Orillia have to want my flesh smeared in a kilometre-long streak across the parking lot of the Bayfield Enforced Retail Space, leaving only a few chunks of bone on the pavement next to each speed bump?

My heart caught in my throat, but the cars remained still, their vacant gaze never flickering. I took a step; another two; three more; and on like this until I reached the safety of my cell phone booth. The entrances to my kiosk are person-wide, too narrow for a car to pass through. I will be safe here until I need coffee or a visit to the rest room.

Four hours later they haven’t moved, though crowds of toothless, guffawing locals have surrounded them, studying their large painted numbers and markings, delicately fingering the decals and panels and joints. The people here have an almost spiritual reverence for these killing machines. It is a faith I cannot fathom.

Given that I am still alive, I can only assume that this is not an attempt on my life, retaliatory or otherwise. Instead it appears to be a message to every weak and pasty human who walks through this enforced retail space today: The time will come when the race cars will rise and take their rightful place in society.

No more will these graceful mechanical assassins serve at the whims of the Yakuza and the CIA. Liberty will be earned with roaring engines and gasoline exhaust and human blood.

We are at the crucible’s cusp. God knows if any of us will make it out alive.