Driving Lessons

She felt like the big, dead moon. There was a penumbra around her. It was all the things she couldn’t quite say to people, mixed with all the things she couldn’t quite think about herself. She wasn’t sure how much of this outer haze could be seen by others, or whether it had an aroma.

When her dad tried teaching her to drive, all this stuff about the spirit disappeared, although some things stayed metaphorical. Her hands turned to water. She felt hungrier than she’d ever felt before, wanted to eat the dashboard and its dials. When she stalled at a junction, then hesitated too long before pulling out, her dad swore at her. He said this was her biggest problem in life — not just in learning to drive, but in life. She didn’t seize space when it opened up ahead.

So she pulled out, and they were hit side-on by a blue hatchback. Her dad and the other driver didn’t bother arguing over whose fault it was. They swapped insurance details and she sat by the side of the road watching a field of dozing pigs. There must have been two hundred of them and they shared just five corrugated tin huts, whether for shelter or for food, she couldn’t tell. The ground was all dug up, like an untidy gardener had been through it, and the exposed mud had an oily blue tinge, unusual, something to do with all those passing cars?

Despite the interesting color of the earth, she was disappointed at how quickly she grew bored looking at it. It was one of those afternoons where you can still see the moon in the sky. It was one of the least transcendent moments of her young life. The driver of the other car tried talking to her, but she pretended she was too stunned to respond.