broken car

The cold, dark moonlight just barely passes through my window. The moon is full and at its highest point, which is why I have the lights on.

My car is broken, and I need to fix it. So I’m up at… what is it… one in the morning?

I would never go to an auto repair place, oh, no. I don’t trust most anyone with most anything. I only would let a few people help me.

…the problem is, those people have normal, sensible sleep schedules. Which I hate.

Despise it to my bones.

‘We can’t help you, we need nine hours of sleep and four cups of coffee…’ Pathetic. I only sleep five hours a night, and I only need four cups of coffee. Hey, maybe that’s why I’m always so jumpy! No, that couldn’t be. Right? Right.

So here’s me, at 1:07 in the morning, working on figuring out what is wrong with my car engine, alone. Thank goodness for YouTube tutorials, eh?

I’m so, so tired. But I need my car to get to work, because I don’t like Uber and I hate buses. And I can’t walk twenty miles in a reasonable amount of time. That would take, like, seven hours. If I don’t stop. And move at a good pace. I’d still be late.

Also, it’s midsummer. It feels like 90 in the middle of the night. I need the car fixed. So I can’t go to sleep. But I keep drifting off, 10 minutes at a time, just little mini naps, but they’re getting more frequent. I drift off every 15 now, and I have to get myself to wake up. I’m used to going to bed at 11 and waking up at 4:30.

It’s 1:12 now. So… tired……………… what? No, I’m awake. Sorry ‘bout that. See what I mean? Twelve minutes between now!

Just because I barely sleep doesn’t mean I’m good at barely sleeping less. I’m terrible at sleeping less. Five is the lower limit! I can’t stop. But I need to stop. I wish I trusted mechanics. Yawn. I'm so tired. So bored. I might get fired if I’m too late, though…

I have to be there at 7:30. So I have to get my car fixed by… 7…

Okay, it’s… 2:38 now. This doesn’t look good and I still don’t know what’s wrong. And that means I can't fix it. It has to be the engine, right? Because it won’t start? Right? RIGHT?!

…I think I’m panicking. But my dream was really cool. My car worked. I had a cool job. I had a bunch of friends, a nice house, and a family. AND my car worked. It worked! Please work.

My boss isn’t nice. Most bosses aren’t great, but mine hates me. He hates me more than I hate public transportation, and considering that I threw a rock through a bus window once and ran into a dark alley to avoid waiting at a bus stop, that’s saying something. A lot of things.

None of which I’m a particular fan of. I take out my phone and start messaging. Maybe they’ll be up now it’s 2:45. Maybe? I think to myself.

“Hello.”

“I need help.”

“Pls come over.”

“My car won’t start.”

I send these four messages to everyone in my messages. I wait thirty minutes. No reply from any of them. I wait another fifteen just to make sure, and nothing, and then another thirty, and nothing, until finally I just give up and go back to the car.

I try to check the car’s fuses to see if one has blown, but they all seem perfectly fine. I pop the hood again, but I can’t see anything that could possibly be messed up, it all looks the same as usual. I try to start the car, over and over again, but it doesn’t work. It just doesn’t. I don’t understand, nothing looks wrong with it!

My usual wake-up alarm goes off. 4:30 now. Gotta hurry, just gotta hurry and figure it out. But it doesn’t make sense.

I drift off again. This time, I’m in a nice, beautiful meadow, playing with my big, fluffy dog. I snap out of it. 4:57. I tinker with the engines and swap out all the fuses. Still doesn’t work. 5:19. Seconds, minutes tick by as I keep on trying whatever I can think of.

5:30. I leave and pour my dog’s food for him, giving him all the pets I can. 5:38. He finishes, and I’m able to walk back into the garage. He chooses to follow. 6:00. Cars zooming by start to get more frequent. A lot of other people have to be up by now too. I envy them getting up at 5:30. I wish I could.

6:15. I start to get desperate, and frantic. My dog whines worriedly. He nudges me, but I completely ignore it.

7:30. There’s no way I can fix it in time now. Maybe I should call an Uber? I reach for the phone, nearly there… but I can’t do it. But then, I realize. What’s the one thing I haven’t tried yet? Just… jumpstarting the car?

6:45. The only issue is that the jumpstarting battery I have isn’t charged. I grab it out of the car, rush to the nearest cable and plug it in.

9:15. “So,” says my boss, “Why are you so late?”

“My car battery died. I didn’t have a way to jump it.”

“...very well, I guess. Don’t be late again. But you should have just taken a bus, idiot!”

“Mmmhmm… should’ve… but I didn’t.”

“Why didn’t you just call in that you might be a bit late?”

“When I got the jumper, I had to charge it, and my phone died in the meantime. But I will need to take a vacation day. See, as nice as it is to be at work, I never got to sleep.”

“Are you kidding me?”

“No sir.”

“Just get out of my office.”