Dreams Or How I Live My Life in Daydreams

Fast Car

When the bell rang, signifying the end of the school day, Autumn bolted out the classroom. Giving Flash a run for his money, she didn't stop until she was out in the daylight.

She likened leaving the brick structure to escaping from a dark dungeon of a dilapidated castle, the stones crumbling, foundation sinking, and overgrown vines everywhere.

Going to high school is fun—that's what her parents told her. Only it wasn't. Not when you're at the bottom of the totem pole in popularity.

Middle school wasn't any better.

The first time she noticed her family's financial woes was when she saw her mother try to conceal the shut-off notice while retrieving the mail. Though acting cheerful, she saw the tears clinging to her mother's eyelashes. 

 It was also around that time when she perceived the stares and whispers directed at her from her classmates because her clothing is an off-brand.

What does it matter that her clothes don't have a celebrity's name on them or that her shoes have scuff marks? She had two more years of dealing with the nonstop mocking. Two more years. She didn't know if she could take any more of it.

Between Timothy and his clique and Mad Zach and his stupid pranks, she wanted to stand on the rooftop and scream at the top of her lungs.

And what was that about Mad Zach asking her to be his date to the dance? Did he think of her as a charity case?

Her eyes clouded. She blinked, willing herself not to cry. She had done enough of that already.

The loud rattling of a car muffler close by halted her thoughts. She grimaced.

Her head hung low, she trudged past the curious bystanders, their necks craned, towards the source of the aggravating noise, a blue metallic Impala. A plume of black smoke wafted from the tailpipe.

Her dad poked his bespectacled face out the open window, wisps of his medium-length salt and pepper hair drooping over his eyelids. The collar of his flannel shirt stuck out from under his tweed jacket.

He offered a wan smile, the same smile that her mother wore whenever they were in a financial fix.

Autumn stopped her throbbing ears, the unceasing clamor from the muffler was loud enough to wake the dead.

She dipped her head, hiding her embarrassment, climbed into the vehicle, shut the door, and slumped down in the seat. 

Her father patted her arm. "It'll quiet down soon," he yelled over the noise. "Don't forget to fasten your seatbelt."

With a jolt and a tug, the car veered from off the curb as her father navigated their way through the loitering pedestrians off the school property.

Once in traffic, the rattling subsided. Autumn released her tight grip from off the hand rest and exhaled.

Her father smirked. "Told you."   He cranked up the volume of the radio programmed to an adult contemporary station. He forbid anyone to change it.

Time passages

There's something back here that you left behind

Oh, time passages

Buy me a ticket on the last train home tonight

He sighed, his honey-colored eyes shimmering behind his glasses, his thoughts nostalgic. "They don't make music like this anymore."

Autumn nodded. From the solemnity in his inflection, she knew she was in for another of her father's tales of how simple life was while growing up in the seventies and eighties.