A Deal with Fate

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The engine roared as Jake’s foot pressed against the gas pedal. He had just got out of the dealer with this fine specimen of German engineering which felt like an unrestrained colt under the expertise of his hands, just waiting for its master’s command. He had managed to strike an unbelievably good bargain with the dealer who seemed too keen to get this car off his hands.

“A car like this at such a price is a definite steal” Thought Jake as his car raced through the downtown “I wonder why the dealer wouldn’t cash-in on its real worth”

But he pushed these thoughts out and single-mindedly fixated his mind upon the raging engine that pushed the speedometer higher and higher. His heart raced and his veins pumped thrill as adrenaline took over his mind. The roar of the engine coupled with the empty intersection didn’t help in easing this rush. The car seemingly communicated its intent to be unleashed as it thundered with every flick of his foot and responded marvelously with every twist of his wrists against the wheel… The feeling of having earned his dream felt unmatched and almost too unreal for Jake.

But then something shifted inside him… his hands and foot refused to obey him, his vision started to blur and his heart raced within his chest. He couldn’t comprehend whatever was happening to him… he felt incredibly frail, unable to muster the strength to save himself. His unbound joy had just turned into his worst nightmare- one where he was just a spectator to all the terrible things that were happening to him.

In the end, he gave up- the acceptance gave him peace as he dozed off into the void. His ears remained the only remaining connection with the material world. A blaring horn and a screech of tire was all that it could perceive before giving way to eternal peace- or so he believed.

***

“This is just amazing man... almost like holding a beast under your commands, just ready to leash out!” Jake could make out a man yelling. He opened his eyes and found himself in the same car, unscathed and unharmed but at the rear seat. It was being driven by a man he couldn’t recognize but who seemed too engrossed in revving the engine to its limits.

Just then his co-passenger whipped around “What do you think of it?” His eyes seemed to pierce through Jake, who struggled to keep his sanity together in the midst of this madness.

“Who are you? And what am I doing here?” Jake asked, baffled by the occurrences… The duo started to laugh hysterically at his words.

“Can you tell me where I am?” He yelled and with that the laughter dissipated. The men in the front looked at each-other, nodding in silent agreement. The whole exchange seemed weirder with every passing second.

“You’re a good man Jake… Hope you don’t make the same mistake as we did” The co-passenger uttered, fiddling with the silver chain around his neck. Intense silence engulfed the cabin, shifting the vibe to a bottomless melancholy

“What do you mean?” Jake questioned “What is going on?”

“The same intersection… the same car… just two different people at different times” The driver met his gaze through the rear-view mirror “You are lucky… don’t you dare waste this chance that life has given you”

“Wait- I was here a while ago and then I- what happened?” Jake’s heart sunk.

“My mother gifted this to me- she was waiting… I should have thought about her… I should have” the co-passenger wiped his eyes; tears of remorse filled the void in them.

“You are a good man, Jake, else fate wouldn’t have been so kind to you” The driver smiled as he spoke. “Be grateful for it”

The enigmatic answers seemed to spiral into a whole lot of nothing. Hundreds of thoughts popped up and a thousand questions wrestled in his mind but before he could articulate them, the world around him vanished into a void, into a never-ending nothingness and in this emptiness Jake fell. At that instance, just like before, his mind was at utter peace, decluttered and detached from any material thought

***

Jake’s eyes opened with a gasp. His heart galloped and temples throbbed… he tried to move but intense pain shot up within his body. The haze around his vision cleared off and he found himself within the confines of a hospital bed, the incessant beeping piercing his eardrum which had been long immersed in blessed silence.

He groaned, partly with pain and somewhat with his newfound inability to move, particularly his neck which was probably a muscle spasm, he gathered. A faint memory of his final moments in the car, the screech and the smash but still the whole incident fell out like an odd piece in a puzzle… he felt foreign to his own mind the way it gave way to nothingness time and again.

However just then the impression of something cold in his hands caught his attention and as soon as his gaze fell upon it, his heart sunk.

“Isn’t it-?” He breathed out his bafflement. There, in his hand, lay the chain that he saw around the neck of the man in his dreams.

It all made sense now, the car, the price and the dream… he had just seen death with those departed and had barely managed to get out alive still. And then it dawned upon him, the sentence that person had uttered- fate was indeed kind to him.

-The End

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