February Flash Lit 10 - The Extra Key

“Suddenly she came upon a little three-legged table, all made of solid glass:  there was nothing on it but a tiny golden key, and Alice’s first idea was that this might belong to one of the doors of the hall; but, alas!  either the locks were too large, or the key was too small, but at any rate it would not open any of them.”  Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland, Chapter 1

The shop was full of fanciful clothes, dresses with tulle skirts, embroidered jackets in jewel colors, wide-legged shantung pants.  Here and there, a bride twirled to see all sides in the mirror or an exhausted bridesmaid concluded that yes, indeed, the dress did make her look fat, but would look fabulous on the maid of honor.  I had no idea why I was there.  I needed to be in the parking lot.  Perhaps this was the shortest way?

The bunch of keys weighed heavily in my hand.  Where had I parked?  I couldn’t remember.  For that matter, I didn’t remember what car I was looking for.  I looked through the keys and found an unfamiliar fob:  it was for some kind of Volkswagen.  A memory or a simulacrum of one came to me and I knew that I was picking up the car that Brent had left there, not my own car.  I had no idea what color or shape it was, so I wandered up and down the aisles pressing the unlock button on the fob, hoping for enlightenment.  Once I thought I found the car, a blue minivan, but it turned out that the high school kids piling into it had just pressed their button at the same time.

The shape seemed right, though.  Yes.  I was looking for a van.  I found it off in a little offshoot of the lot, the kind of place with dumpsters and service trucks.  The van crouched under a tree.  At some point, it had been white, but it was at least half rust.  When I creaked open the driver’s door, I saw that the vinyl seat cover had been eaten away entirely, leaving just spongy yellow foam.  There was no seat back, no passenger seat, and the back of the van had only more spongy yellow foam on the floor.  This was not going well.

It got worse.  I sat in the driver’s seat and discovered that the van had a manual transmission.  In theory, I can drive stick, but in practice it is roughly equivalent to the stress level of going back to seventh grade every day for the rest of my life.  With acne.  And braces.  And the terrible perm.  However, I needed to get home.  Naturally, the van had about five pedals, all of them in locations that did not seem usual.  Thinking about driving was apparently enough to put the van into reverse and none of the pedals appeared to be a brake pedal.  The good news, such as it was, was that the van was moving very slowly and probably would miss the truck behind it if I managed to turn the wheel.

The alarm has never gone off at a more welcome moment.