Beyond the Verge, by Ed Whitfield

For Sarah

Every day he drove to work. And every day he drove along the same road. And every day he stared straight ahead of him, following the speeding tarmac, the broken, white lines, so fast along the motor way that they became blurred and unified, until of course he hit the cities congestion and the same collection of lines would stare and taunt him for at least ten minutes at a time. And everyday he would sit and only think about getting home later that day. The TV Times, already impregnated upon the tissue matter of his brain, burnt and seared, scorched images scrolled across his minds eye, what will I watch later on?

I'll flick on Home and Away as I get changed, the Simpson's as I microwave my dinner. Maybe there's a game show on while I eat it. Friends as I prepare tomorrow's report. That terrible comedy quiz show with the 'C' class celebrities as I finish the report, and then relax to… oh brilliant! Dirty Harry is on tonight!

This was his day, more or less, day in, day out. On Fridays the boys from the office would all go out to the pub. A few scoops had by all then head to the club as the bar closed. Hit the floors. So stylish, sexy! Drunk and silly, but it was all ok, just a bit of fun, and maybe you might get a girl home that night. Maybe. Saturday would bring in the dawn, then the afternoon and the 'outrageous hangover, lads! Unbelievable!' Perhaps a movie that night with whatever 'slag' had been pulled the night before. 'That'd be it, of course!' And Sunday would typically be the quiet day of the week, a visit to the folks near holidays or just a bath and some TV.

The typical week really.

Back to the road, however. It was a dual carriage way, only two lanes a side, with the odd hard shoulder and turn offs. The journey along it to the city took about three quarters of an hour, and there was never really very bad traffic either. It was a nice road, smooth with a high grassy verge on either side. Small trees and huge light posts occupied the verge, all fairly typical, your average side of the road, really. Nothing ever worth considering, why would you? What was there to consider? Cars, tar, grassy banks. Typical, usual, standard. Normal. I mean, there were probably just houses and shops, or fields with cows and the likes, just over the bank, nothing out of the ordinary. Why would there be?

And as he drove along at seventy miles an hour something odd happened. These thoughts, pointless ponderings, just happened to be floating around the general atmosphere and just happened to filter through his spine where it travelled upwards and resided, quite comfortably and quietly, at the back of his mind.

A few miles down the road and the thoughts patient wait to surface at the front of the conscious arena was rewarded and he gave them his full, momentary consideration. As they drifted past and the TV guide re-emerged he quickly attempted to pull them back, resurrect them from the brain stew, as he thought them odd. How peculiar to ever think of what. . . oh! What was it I was just thinking of! I hate that! Concentrate! No! Relax the brain, let it drift back, ah yes! . . .what may lie beyond the verge. Hmm, strange, maybe its not a regular housing estate that you assumed would be just like yours, yours doesn't have a motor way behind it. Maybe it isn't a vast stretch of green, dotted with cows, or any other livestock for that matter!

Now the thoughts truly grabbed his attention. He became quite engrossed as to what may indeed be behind the bank all along the road to work. Houses and fields abandoned he began to imagine industrial estates and dark factories. Where else would you place such dirty, grimy sights but along a road, behind a verge, out of site. The thoughts bounced to and fro, creating wonderful reactions between chemicals and electrical currents.

The grey and murky images of industry gave way to beautiful images of a river and a sunny valley, those of which littered his memories of childhood, regardless of whether he had ever visited such places in his youth. The river stretched on for miles, the sun made it glitter and a forest had instantly grown between one bank of the river and the foot of a mountain that wasn't there a second ago. The scenery made him close his eyes and picture the bliss and joy of maybe someday, laying in the tall grass alongside a girl, but not any girl, a pretty one that made him laugh, a standard set by many opinions gazed over in magazines. Breasts and figure didn't matter, captivating eyes and a sense of humour, that's all.

A sudden loud beep made him wake up quickly and pull the car back in its safe, intended direction. This annoyed him, not that he was about to crash but that he had been woken from his imaginings and the reality filtered slowly back in that he was, in fact, on the way to work.

Work! Indeed! Resentment gathered over his head like dark, intense thunder clouds. Lightning made purely of anger began to crackle and polarise the electrons inside his head. His mood had changed. He felt anger and resentment towards the fact that there he was, traveling to work and just think what he could be missing! If only he just stopped and got out of the car, walked up and over the verge and just took a glimpse of what might be there, just to know, just to see. Work! He had to keep traveling or he would be late for work. The supervisors that had recently been employed to look over productivity would not be merciful in their yield reports and tardiness trends if he was to be late. So on he drove.

Oh the audacity of it all! Why should he, he thought. Why cant he?! How dare something work like that on his freewill. The curiosity as to what spectacular life just might spring to being if only he had the few moments to walk up the bank and look beyond his predestined track. The girl, she might be lying there, beautiful, radiant, smiling at him, inviting him closer. . .

. . . And all of a sudden he was on top of the bank, looking out over the horizon, the sun shone, just as he expected. A fish had jumped and had upset the slow moving stream of glitter, winding between the forest on its way to the mountain. The fields were a rich green with above knee high grass and bright red poppies. His heart sang! He ran as fast as he could down the bank only to find himself in the arms of the girl, scented and flowing, warm and soft. Happiness and glee, dancing together over the valley and to the river, both seeming to ascend towards the sun, upwards and onwards. . .

. . . The ambulance came to a sudden screech, its wheels crunching on the shattered glass, scattered over the tarmac. He must have drifted to sleep and let go of the wheel, allowing its trail to slowly curve and drive straight up and into the grassy bank at the side of the road, where the car tipped over, throwing the body, propelling it at high speed towards the awaiting landing zone. That being a few feet away and the body was obviously lifeless as life did seldom inhabit such fragmented segments of brain tissue, the scorched ramblings of the TV guide no longer visible among what was now nothing more than grey slime between, if you looked close enough, the pitch black hills that belonged to the mountain range that was the motor way. And it stretched on for a long time if you looked that close.

-- Ed Whitfield, November 2003

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