Here I sit. Every day. Every night. The buzz of bright fluorescent lights above me. 24/7. On. Concrete walls tower all around me. Even oil-stained concrete below me. I hate the smell of oil on concrete, but I’ve learned to live with it. At least I’m covered, dry from the rain outside.

I know every time it rains. The sound runs, trickles or pounds down into the wide vent beside me. I don’t know if the others can hear it but boy, I sure do.

But what’s really loud? When we all take our families away at the same time. That’s when the fan in the wide vent kicks into gear. The gear is weak though. Only one speed. Pathetic. Sometimes when the fan is on a lot, boy it makes my oil burn. But boy does it ever clean the air in here.

The automation is impressive. It detects the stinky stuff and boom, it’s on. I love automation. I’m impressed with any automation. I have automation too. But mine is a

higher level. Of course I need my family to get me going. I can’t do it alone. But once I get started? Watch out! You can’t stop me now. King of the road I am. All I need is a tap on my North American power pedal and that gives me the A-okay to rule the road. Then my entire being kicks into gear. And that’s when MY automation shines. Gear to gear I go. Accelerating. Faster and faster. My rubber gripping the road. The wind pounding my front and passing along each side of me.

My favorite is the highway. I hum along with every part moving in unison. Working together, smooth. When this happens, I fall into the well-oiled machine club. Oh boy how I love being in that club. At this age, it’s not so easy. For twenty years I’ve competed against them all. Sports cars, trucks, motorbikes. I don’t care. I’ll take anyone on. And my family knows it. They support me and give me the opportunity when it presents itself. We know the type.

 A Ram truck. Guy with a scowl on his face. Foot revving the peddle at the red. It’s so stupid. But when the light turns green, I know exactly what to do. And boy do I give it to them. For the first few seconds I get ahead. They never expect me to try and race them. Every time I get the same reaction. A loud engine rev with no regard for how hard they’re pushing their automation. So stupid. But there’s something about the stupid process that gives me

pleasure. Because I’m a bit older, it’s a daily struggle to keep all my parts on. Unless they are rusted into place, well then, they are slowly disappearing and there isn’t much I can do about that. But doing the odd race gives me a bolt of youth. A bolt of energy. A charge for life. It’s short lived. They always pass me just on the other side of the intersection, but I sure gave their ego a scare and that makes me chuckle. And when I hear my family say, “What an asshole.” I know they got a chuckle too.

After a long outing, I get tired now. The longest outing was to a place called San Francisco. I don’t know where that is, but we had to go through this weird concrete gate

thing. The guy was mean. Questioning my family like they did something wrong. I wanted to barrel over him, but he looked important. He also looked inside in my back, right behind where my family sits. Lifting the odd item and poking around with his grimy gloved hand. I didn’t like that. He was rude to my family, and I felt invaded. Only my family is allowed here.

But once we made it past him, that’s when we cruised. The surface was different against my rubber. Hard, bumpy. It was fun and exhausting. Nonstop for days I carried this pop-up tent thing. It was heavy like an elephant on my back. But still I drove and drove. We went up into the mountains. Down to the sea. And then through a desert. The desert was the hardest. It was hot. So hot that my family had to stop and let me cool down. I wasn’t afraid. I knew I wouldn’t let my family down. Leave them stranded in this hell zone of heat. I just needed a quick break and then I would take them to wherever they wanted to go next.

All along the way we stopped at these weird food stops. The food was different. My family called it American fuel. I didn’t like American fuel. I wasn’t used to it. But I love my family, so I drank it up and kept us all going. My job was to get them there and then back home. That’s always my job no matter where we go. After many days, I knew we were close to home when the rain started to fall. Then we drove through another concrete gate thing. This time the man was nice. He only asked my family two questions and then we drove off. No looking inside of me. I liked him better.

When we finally got home, my family parked me back into my spot. Back to the same old smell of oil on concrete, exhaust fumes from the others and the big, automated fan beside me. I had no idea that my family would expect this much from me. But I took them to this San Francisco and then I brought them back home. I may be old. And it might take me a bit to recover. But I can still support my family and take them wherever they want to go. And that keeps me sitting here. Under the fluorescent lights. Waiting for our next adventure.

Prompt: Write from the point of view of an object of importance or something not alive.

Laila Talkio is a talent agent in Vancouver, BC and is writing a fiction about a family history of narcissistic spouses. After an absence from writing, Laila has been inspired and has jump-started her writing again by joining the Wordflow community.