Conductive (Scenes from a WIP)

Sideswipe

Sparks spat from the severed electrical wires and waves of heat roiled over the thickly-freckled girl gripping the steering wheel, the air heavy with the scent of metal and warm asphalt. She killed the ignition.

I'm toast. How am I going to tell Mom and Dad I crashed because I had another of those dizzy spells? I only just convinced them they’d gone away!

I’d convinced myself they’d gone away.

How stupid of me.

They never go away.

Uncurling her shaking brown fingers from the wheel, she opened the car door. Her seatbelt was jammed, however, so she flopped back into the driver’s seat with a moan. She hadn't meant to sideswipe the one and only streetlight this side of Chayton, Wisconsin with the nearly new blue Prius, of course. It was just her luck, though, really. Couldn’t hit the surrounding cornfields when the dizziness took over her ability to function, could she? Nope, she had to beeline for the streetlight. Even at only twenty-five miles an hour, it was enough to crumple in the right side of the front bumper and headlight and decapitate the side mirror. 

A raging headache was repeatedly stabbing behind her left eye with a blunt torture instrument - the combined result of the temperature and the gathering storm clouds overhead. She pushed her copper-colored hair out of her sweaty face to rub her forehead, her hand still shaking with every pounding heartbeat. Adrenaline. 

Of course. What else would happen to you, after knocking out a headlight and giving enough scratches to the paint job to blame it on a rabid cougar? 

But really… did it have to come? If my body doesn't calm down soon, I'll be wonky for days. 

If not for the light breeze drifting in through the open door, it would have been stifling in the car. The girl’s skin oozed with heat, the windows beginning to fog even though it was close to seventy degrees outside. She gasped for breath, her lungs aching with the bitter smoke and the heat. It wasn’t a new feeling, though.

'Allergies', her mom called them, these headaches and fevers that started as soon as the weather began to get warm every year. "Just allergies."

But they were getting worse. 

That dizzy spell was longer than those I've ever gotten before. The girl rubbed her temples to try and calm herself, but when she closed her eyes, the reflection of sunlight off the car's ruined hood remaining as splotches of rusty orange and blue dancing in her vision. 

Sirens broke through the shrill of grasshoppers and hiss of young corn in the wind. The girl moaned. One of the neighbors must have seen the bashing she’d given the Prius, and called it in. There was nothing she could do, though. She couldn't get out of the car, and she was so shaken she doubted if she would be able to walk far even if she could. The nasal wailing of the sirens drew closer, until the bright red gloss of a fire truck appeared around the corner, racing in her direction. The fire station was only three minutes closer than the police station, so it wouldn’t be long before black and whites came speeding down the road, too.

Yay. Party down on Bloomfield Road, everyone’s invited.

The fire truck’s brakes hissed and groaned when it came to a halt alongside the crashed car, and the girl blessed it, holding her aching head in her hands, when the sirens stopped. Then four firemen in yellow reflective uniforms piled out. 

“No lines down.” The first one off the truck cried after a quick assessment of the car and street lamp. “Safe to proceed.”

Then he jogged forward up to the open door of the Prius, his face the determined mask of a seasoned professional.