Rural nowhere

I climb into the truck hitting the door sill with my heavy mud stained boots hearing the sound of small stones scratching into the paint and putting their permanent mark on the metal underneath. But it does not really matter. There is a slim chance of hitting a place on the sill where there is any paint left anyway. It may even have removed some surface rust appearing in this damp wet environment.

I land heavily in the plush seat re-adjusting a few times to push the wallet in my rear pocket to a comfortable position. As I take my right hand over my left shoulder to grab the seat-belt I am restricted by the many layers of clothes I am wearing. I can smell the wet waxed canvas which is a perfect ingredient for adding on top of the “old-car-interior” cocktail that is already present. Even though the weather “objectively” is bad, the smells, feels and sounds of the interior calms me down.

The seatbelt clicks into place with a sound leaves no question as to whether it is properly secured or not. I put the key in the ignition after I have found the right key among the many false-positives. As I turn the ignition I am reminded how strange but reassuringly nice a design it is with this ignition lock where there are ears on either side of the ignition key to transfer the load and there is never any doubt about any of the clicks along the way to ignition-on and finally the push past to turn over the engine.

The gear-stick shakes violently while the electric starter motor turns over the internal combustion engine a few times until it springs to life and settles into a comforting but perceptible idle.

The wipers start automatically, but not because of clever rain-sensing technology, they were just on when I turned off the car. I turn up the speed of them as it now rains even more.

I press the clutch to the floor feeling the mud and gravel compress between the boots and the pedal while I catch the vibrating gear stick and find a gear in the vicinity of where first gear usually lives. There is no doubt that I found a gear as the stick required a firm press to go all the way in - but whether it is first or not will only be revealed as I let out the clutch. The drop in revs is perceptible but not so much that I think I selected anything else than first.

The torque of the big engine pull pushes the vehicle forward as I let out the clutch and start to press down on the accelerator.