|
Jack had been driving for so long the haze seemed like cataracts growing on his eyes. Clouds of neon and moths and he was driving in the sky, feeling fine so long as he didn't stop. At the wheel, he had power and freedom. When he pulled over at rest stops, he had only the commands - Janet's commands. He glanced at her, finding her eyes aglow with aluminum gloss and garish light. She had a mean streak and emanated violence, sexual demands and cruelty. It was fatal attraction; she was a femme fatale. When he’d fallen for her he’d fallen in deep, and he didn't have to think to know he'd never get out. The things he'd done for her were so terrible his eyes welled with tears at the thought. She punished him so much for cheating with other women. SPRINGFIELD NEXT EXIT was on the sign, and Jack caught the gleam of mischief in Janet's eyes. It reflected everywhere, making the endless lights like stars, broken glass and razor blades. She'd want to stop and make him do something terrible in Springfield. He knew without asking. He didn't want to think about it but he had to as the memories twisted in his mind like an energized snake. Only now while he was driving could he make a decision. Only now could he defy the power. It was amazing he hadn't done it before. The way it was she‘d sing to him like a siren and he’d always get back behind the wheel. The spell had kept him drifting from town to town down the entire Eastern Seaboard before heading off this way. The highways went on forever. When he was a kid, the shopping malls went on forever. It was all in haze, but now it could be more because for Janet, Springfield would be the end of the line. A glance at her and she was turning to him. He knew she hadn't read his thoughts. Of course not as she was insensitive; her power was in commanding him. If she could read minds she‘d be different. The exit was ahead, a darker funnel of exhaust in the haze. Janet's face went cold and robotic. “Turn off at Springfield,” she commanded. Coming around the bend, they burst out of the haze and Janet crackled with life, edgy in her seat and waiting for it to happen. A dinner was on the roadside ahead, and it came up so fast it seemed to jump out at them. “Pull in,” Janet said, even though a police car was in the lot. The place was a small roadside dinner to be exact, and the police cruiser was pulling out. As Jack rolled up to the big front window, he remembered his decision - Springfield, end of the line. He bit into it like it was an electric eel or something he could suck power from, and the confusion made him doubly nervous and excited. He hoped Janet wouldn't notice. He wanted his defiance to be a surprise, something to punish her in the end. Inside he ate a slice of apple pie, giving the honey-blond waitress occasional smiles. She was an immoral vixen of highway, no doubt about it, but he liked the place. It had a jukebox with a front like the grill of a big truck. An old classic rock song floated from it, making for an easy atmosphere; it was almost like being in the haze on the highway, or it would've been if it weren't for Janet glaring nastily from the Jaguar. Janet had that mean look, and he could see the waitress giving her suspicious glances. Then he noticed he was the only patron left in the dinner. “It’s time!” he said with a mouthful of apple pie as he realized that Janet would take advantage of the situation. “Something wrong with the pie?” the waitress said, stepping over. “There’s something wrong with you,” he said as he received Janet's command. “I'll show you.” He opened his jacket and revealed the hunting knife inside it. It didn’t go as usual, she hit him with a sugar bowl and as sweetness sprayed he face he managed to drag her struggling to the parking lot. She cracked the glass door with her heel as they went out, and her dress got torn, but generally, Jack prevailed as he had in the past. It was neon heaven; the lights filled him with insane joy. Now was the time for his surprise, and he wasn't let down. Janet commanded him to bring her to the car, but he refused - yelled back at her defiantly. “I'm going to end it here, baby! Get out of the car! It's Springfield, end of the line!” Janet was devastated, sitting in the car frozen, her eyes as dead as mica. Carefully, proudly, Jack led her from the car, and they were in the haze clouds until he pushed her down beside the waitress. With his free hand, Jack took out the hunting knife. “Now you're going to get it, Janet. There'll be no escape, baby. Not this time. It's Springfield, end of the line.” He prepared to act but the waitress sprang up, knocked him aside and ran to the restaurant and her phone. It truly was the end of the line because the next car to arrive was a police cruiser. Yet it didn't end right then; the lone cop got out and went weak at the knees. The vision was ghastly, a man sitting in the remains of a strange mostly plastic corpse, and arguing with the head of what the cop recognized as one of the new robot Janet therapy dolls shrinks used with sex offenders. In the neon, it seemed unreal and the vision hazed to spots in his eyes as he staggered back. The robot watched too, but with revolving eyes as Jack put the blade to his neck. Springfield was where he would end it all … but it didn’t quite work out. The cop whacked him on the side of the head with a baton and he went down to the asphalt. Moths swirled in the yellowish light, darkness was beyond, and the last moment in Jack’s vision was the fading light at the end of the line. … The End … of the line … where the light … of robot love … dies in your eyes …
|