Bumper Sticker
The car that pulled into the gas station in front of me had a bumper sticker under the back window that said, “Ram right into me! I have no will to live!” It was made of notebook paper and scotch taped on the car. Black permanent marker lettering flashed under the fluorescent lights then disappeared for moments in the nighttime darkness until the car crawled under the bright structure of gas pumps.
It’s a phenomenon I’ve seen only once, self-made bumper stickers. I was stuck behind a blue minivan that had several taped-on strips of paper that broadcasted anti-abortion sentiments. They were going several miles under the speed limit, as if they wanted to give everyone the opportunity to read their messages carefully, really mull them over. Just as I did then, I took the ramshackle, homemade quality of this sticker as a sign of the driver’s sincerity and dedication.
I pulled into a pump right next to the car. It was a dirty cream color, small and round. We were alone at the station; it was almost midnight. I shouldn’t have been out, but I couldn’t sleep. A tall woman dressed in a slouching red t-shirt and jeans stepped out of the car. Her body was skeletal and her eyes distant, like she had been released from someone’s basement where she had been starved. I stayed in my car for a minute, watching her stiff, dispassionate movements as she slipped her card into the machine then out again and inserted the gas pump into her car. Then I got out.
I pretended to be interested in pumping my own gas for a bit, but I took no action to begin the process. After a few seconds, I shouted to her.
“Hey!” I said. She turned, her face still and unresponsive. I gestured towards the back of
her car.
“That for real?” I asked.
She shrugged. “What do you think?”
Her voice was hollow like an echo. I said what I thought, “I really don’t know. It seems kinda ironic to me.”
She gave me a little half smile with no joy in it. “Like a joke?” she asked.
“Yeah,” I said, “like a joke.”
span style=”margin-left:60px”> “Then it’s a joke,” she said, “If you wanna think it’s a joke, then it is.”
The gas pump on her side clicked, and she turned her attention to pulling it out of her car.
“You know,” I said, feeling fatherly although it didn’t seem to me like we were that far
apart in age, “someday someone might take you up on that offer.”
She turned back to face me, that tiny, mirthless smile still on her face. “I suppose they might.”
“It’s dangerous,” I said, feeling lame and useless, “to be driving around like that.”
“I’m aware,” she said.
I knew she was about to get back in her car. I said, “I could do it. If you want.”
She halted, halfway into the driver’s seat. She stood up, stared into my face, scrutinizing it. For the first time in my life, I felt judged, foreign to myself. She shook her head, disappointed.
“No,” she said, “I’ve met you now. It wouldn’t do any good.”
I wanted to ask what she meant by that, but before I could speak she was back in her car. She pulled into a parking space and went into the convenience store nearby. Another car pulled into the spot she had been in. I realized I had never started to fill my tank and started. I kept looking back at her car.
After a while I noticed the man pumping gas next to me was staring at the back of her car too. He looked at the sticker as if he was about to burst out into thrilled laughter. His eyes glinted
with excitement. My chest tightened as I heard his pump click. His tank must not have been that empty.
“Don’t,” I muttered.
“You say something, buddy?” he asked. It was the first time he acknowledged my presence. I shook my head.
“Real late, isn’t it?” he said, his voice full of glee.
“Yeah,” I said, “really late.”
I heard clicking heels behind me and knew the woman was coming out of the store. She walked past us both without acknowledging us. I thought about warning her, then wondered what good it would do.
“Hey, sweetheart!” he called. She ignored him and got in the car. He had a wild grin on his face as he hopped in his own. Both he and the woman started their engines at the same time. I watched him inch towards her as she started to pull out of the parking lot. The darkness between the cars became slimmer.
She managed to pick up speed for only a few seconds before his speed overtook her. I heard her scream. His front slammed into her back and ran her off the road into the muddy, wet ditch. The man backed away, his car dented slightly. I thought I heard high laughter from his car as he sped away.
I could see the shadow of her in the driver’s seat, slumped over and limp.
My gas pump clicked, stopped its flow.
Maris Catherine Tiller is a fiction writer from Virginia and has been writing all her life. Her work has been featured in The Aubade, Haunted Portal Magazine, 101 Words, Flash Phantoms, and Active Muse. She has work forthcoming in Cul-de-sac of Blood and Unlikely Stories. She is currently enrolled in the M.F.A. program for Fiction at George Mason University and is primarily a writer of short fiction.