Content warnings: Toronto traffic, blood.
“Fuck, fuck, fuck, fuck, FUCK!” Felix yelled.
He had spent months planning this trip. A full week in a remote cabin with his girlfriend, equal parts writing retreat and vacation.
What he hadn’t planned for was a freak September snowstorm. It had taken Joshua two hours to dig the car out, then another six hours to get to the airport. Felix had missed his flight and spent most of the day waiting for another. He was exhausted, sore, and cranky by the time he reached Toronto. And he still had to drive six hours to the cabin.
He also had to pick his girlfriend up before they could start the six-hour drive. This was supposed to be the easy part—one highway most of the way to her house, then a second highway for the last fifteen minutes. But the snow had followed him, a blizzard so ferocious, he could barely see the car in front of him.
“Come in September, she said,” Felix muttered. “The weather will be beautiful, she said. Hell, she probably thinks this is beautiful. She’s not the one who has to drive in it.”
The car ahead moved forward a few feet. Felix followed, gripping the steering wheel like letting up even a little bit would kill him. It might kill him, actually, since it was September and even the most cautious drivers hadn’t switched to snow tires yet.
The next three hours were more of the same: drive a few feet forward, thank all of the gods that the tires hadn’t given way under him, wait for five or ten or fifteen minutes for the car ahead to move, then drive a few more feet.
At last, he made his way onto the second highway. The traffic here wasn’t quite as bad; he made it fifteen feet between stops instead of five. The snow had cleared up, too, allowing him to better see where he was going.
Felix saw the exit he needed and cheered. Only a few more minutes, and then he’d be with his girlfriend, exchanging hugs and kisses. He’d order a hotel for tonight and they’d set off for the cabin in the morning. Everything would be great.
All he needed to do was survive this very steep, very snow-covered off ramp. His heart pounded in his chest like a xenomorph trying to escape through his ribcage as he approached the curve, and then—
He was off the highway, driving those last few blocks, pulling into his girlfriend’s driveway. He texted her, “I’m here,” and got out of the car for a smoke.
His foot hit a patch of ice and slid out from under him. He grabbed at the car to steady himself but only succeeded at tearing the rearview mirror off as he fell. His skull crunched against the icy pavement and dark spots danced in his vision. He felt a strange sensation of floating, like he had landed in a pool.
There is a pool. A pool of warm liquid forming under his head. Blood. A lot of blood. “Shiiiiiiiit.”
Five years of waiting for money and schedules to align, twenty hours of travel, a dozen near-accidents on the road, and now, now he was dying, ten feet from his girlfriend’s door?
“Fuck you,” he said, raising a shaky middle finger to the sky. “Fuck you very much.”