GLUBGLUBGLUBGLUB

GLUBGLUBGLUBGLUB: a short story

Here's a short story I just wrote, but please remember that short is a relative term. Stop reading when you get bored or it stops making sense or you remember that there's a cool youtube clip you haven't watched.
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GLUBGLUBGLUBGLUB:

RRRRHHHHRRRRRRMMMMKUNCHINKKUNCHINK
No.
RRRRHHHHRRRRRRMMMMKUNCHERNKKUNCHERNK
No.
RRRRHHHHRRRRRRMMMMKERTHUNKERTHUNK
No.
Still not quite right.
Again, he pressed the accelerator and the engine's idling hack revved up into a symphony of grinding gears and sputtering pistons. He closed his eyes and let the guttural range of noises fill his ears for a second before easing off the accelerator and cutting the engine. With the mechanical moans still resonating in his memory, he pursed his lips and blew, mimicking as best he could the sound of a sick eighty-two Buick Skylark motor. The sound started out healthy and full, with all of the manufactured parts faithfully adhering to their mechanical responsibilities…
RRRRRRRHHHHHHHHRRRRRRMMMMMM…
But as the engine leaned into first gear, a weary car part, hidden and forgotten and no doubt feeling unloved, finally gave way to entropy with a…
CLUNK…
And the sound then became a steady death rattle rhythm…
RRRRHHHHHCHINKRRRRRHHHHCHINKKTHUNK.
He stopped.
Damn it. It's still not right.
His lips were numb with effort, but he couldn't nail that sound. The only joy this monstrosity of a car had ever offered was in indirectly giving him the chance to deftly answer that garage mechanics' old time classic, "What kind of sound does it make?" His hereto unrivaled ability to mimic the sound of sick machinery was a talent without a career, but it was something he knew about himself and it was a point of internal pride. But for some reason, he just couldn't nail this new sound.
He got out of the car and eyed the surrounding scenery. If your car had to break down in the middle of nowhere then this was the best little piece of nowhere you could hope to find. Hills rolled through the countryside, complete with a cliché coat of thick and shaggy spring grass. Trees dotted the landscape and off in the far distance a speck of cows sunned. The road itself threaded from horizon to horizon, rising and falling over hill after hill, as if every forty yards the earth had taken in and exhaled a brand new breath. There was even a beautiful pond, complete with a straight from Hollywood shade tree, not but twenty yards away.
It was warm. The sun was out with a light kiss of clouds. It was the kind of nice day that actually forces you to whisper...

"What a nice day."

Only, no day is nice when your car has broken down on a back county road and the closest town is a good forty miles behind you.
This damn car. What a Goddamn thing to inherit. Not property, not heirlooms, and especially not money, all of which his father had sacrificed in the futile attempt to buy the love of his fourth wife, whom had eventually decided that, rather than care for him as his mind deteriorated and his body withered, it would be much more fun to run off with the rodeo and fuck all cowboys she could mount. And so, with no caretaker and no medical hope short of a miracle, his father had begged him to move in with him until death finally saw it fit to drown him into oblivion.
He'd said yes, but not out of the good grace of his heart or a sense of familial duty. No, he said yes because he knew that everyday he took care of him was a day that his father had to contemplate the fact that he didn't deserve to have anyone take care of him, least of all his son. It forced his father to face the decision he'd made twenty-five years ago. There was no more burying it with alcohol or a new wife or a new town. His decision was perpetually reflected by the presence of the only person still willing to take care of him, and he had to hate himself for that, every single day he had to hate himself.
This subtle act of vengeance had cost three of the best years of his life, though, and all he had to show for it now was a bitter taste in his mouth and his father's petulant eighty-two Buick Skylark.
To have it towed into town would cost at least three to four hundred dollars, and who knows what the hell was wrong with it this time and what that would cost to fix, but it was the only car he had and so he kept shelling out what was necessary to keep it rolling along. He'd inherited it, after all. You can't just get rid of something you've inherited, even if what you've inherited is a rusted out behemoth of cracked issues and responsibilities. Someone in your family gave it to you and by doing so said, "This is what you deserve for being here. For existing." And if what you inherited was a shitty car, well, then… But you can't get rid of it. An inheritance is the legacy of who you are, after all.
Just then, a hint of shade slowly edged over him and he looked up to see a light cloud caress across the sun. It really was beautiful. This day. This road. Everyone had sworn it was the most beautiful and scenic drive they had ever seen and they were right. But they also weren't the ones that got stuck somewhere along the way. Their machinery dutifully performed and their black rubber wheels hummed in harmony with the gray asphalt.
His knowledge of engines stopped at checking the fluids, but his life had molded him a stubborn proponent of self-reliance and so he popped the hood to have a look, hoping that maybe he might save the day by bumping the right doo-dad back into the correct what's-it-called. He went for the dipstick first, but didn't reach far into the car's wrought guts when he felt a jagged metal edge bite into his pointer finger. With a dexterity and speed that only pain can provide, he drew his hand out and shoved his finger into his mouth and the sharp taste of flowing blood swirled around his gums. He ran his tongue along the wound and could feel that it was deep.
That's when he lost sight of everything, of all the skies and trees and cows and calm beauty, and the next ten minutes played out like a movie with his sense of self passively watching; his eyes were mad and red as his fists went through the front windshield. He ripped the hood right off its hinges. He tore out the seats. He kicked in the doors. He was angry and strong and dark and hollow and now the world would know in full. But rage is an exhausting past time, and his body finally collapsed to the ground and he curled into a heaving mess of sweat and blood. His hands were butchered and pain pricked from a million points. His body was torn and tired, and yet the car was still there. Quiet and unmoving.
He turned towards the pond. There was no doubt that it was full of disease and stagnation, but he was covered with blood and if he was going to walk back to town he needed to clean up lest someone mistake him for a wandering murderer or wounded victim.
He walked over to the pond and slowly dipped his hands into the cool water. The screaming aches were soothed to a bearable conversational tone as the dried and caked blood diluted into the dark, bottomless water. He looked back at the car. It was a hobbled and horrible thing. A thing he'd inherited but didn't ask for, didn't want, and didn't need. The mechanized hulk had been manufactured into existence, and as such stood in a strong contrast to the green world around it. Especially the pond, which seemed an apex of organic nature. It was crafted by the hand of evolution and was a well-functioning biological machine where nothing was wasted or purposeless. Even death, that seeming devourer of meaning, served as the fuel for new life, with the carcasses of the before digesting into the energy of now. The pond seemed a truly welcoming home. The kind of place where you knew that your lifeless body would serve a purpose beyond crumbling to dust in a wooden box six-feet under. Here, death was life, an idea that wrapped its arms around him in comfort.
He watched as the blood on his hands washed away and expanded into a swirling bloom that spread wide and thin until it disappeared. Yes, the pond was very, very deep, and it could probably embrace anything with its dark and muddy abyss, no matter how big.
* * *
Despite the fact that his knuckles were scuffed to raw meat and cuts scrawled across his arms, he delicately picked up all the scattered glass from the side of the road and tossed the shards into the back seat, alongside the displaced hood and front seat. Once all the evidence of his tirade had been collected and accounted for, he freed the parking break and turned the steering wheel towards the pond. With the driver-side door open, he pushed the lifeless car forward while simultaneously steering. The ground was flat and the earth crunched as the grass bowed to the rolling wheels.
Within ten minutes, the cars two front tires were dipping into the edge of the pond. He stood at the trunk, collecting all the strength of intent he would need. Finally, he set his hands against the rust bucket steel and pushed forward. The cars back tires had sunk into the soft mud, but he pushed until his heart was about to burst and the car inched forward and began a steady crawl into the depths. He rushed to the front seat and threw himself in. Death by water is supposedly one of the most peaceful ways to go. You inhale as if you were breathing and your lungs fill with water and you die of a peaceful asphyxiation. And it had already been such a peaceful day, after all.
Water flooded into the interior and inched its way to his chest. It rushed in through the open door and seeped in through the air vents, quietly babbling…
GLUBGLUBGLUBGLUB…
There were a couple of times he caught himself instinctually holding his breath in anticipation, but he quickly corrected the mistake with a deep exhale. He closed his eyes and prepared to huff a chest full of murky water.
GLUBGLUBGLUBGLUB…
The sound filled his ear as the water rose to his neck…
GLUBGLUBGLUBGLUB…
The water was finally at the touch of his lips. He opened his mouth to breathe it in, but as soon as he did out came the sound…
GLUBGLUBGLUBGLUB…
It came from somewhere deep in his throat and it felt so natural and completely without intent.
The water went…
GLUBGLUBGLUBGLUB…
And he went…
GLUBGLUBGLUBGLUB…
And it sounded just right, a beautiful and organic noise.
GLUBGLUBGLUBGLUB…
GLUBGLUBGLUBGLUB…
GLUBGLUBGLUBGLUB…
He took a last gasp breath of air and threw the door open, finally filling the interior with water. The car was sinking fast and threatening to trap him inside its cold womb all the way to the bottom, but he kicked and squirmed free and broke to the surface just in time to see the brake lights wink goodbye and drown away forever.
He swam to the shore and sat at the pond's edge, taking in one deep breath after another, filling his chest with sun. He eyed the road and followed it forward until it spilled over the horizon and into a who knows what of places he'd never been, and then he realized that's where he was going and that's where he wanted to be, in the land of an always future "who knows what." He stood up and looked at his hands, they were still a mess of flesh and pain, but they'd get better. Hands heal, after all. The next town was about fifty miles away, at least a day's walk, but it'd been so long since he had walked anywhere. It was a nice day. It would be a nice walk.