Choose Your Own Adventure with The Jerry Bennett
Jerry did not know that he was a truck, only that the very young morning light brought with it a terrible disorientation. He woke on the street, unable to move, unable to talk, the sound of his ringing cell phone faint, as if inside a pocket hidden within his clothes.
He attempted to bend at the waste, push off the cold asphalt, but his body would not respond. His call for help was overwhelmed by the trunk’s angry horn. His angry horn.
Jerry was terrified. His vision was broken into a collage of images, showing the street from various angles around his new, steel, chrome, and chipped-white paint body. Wherever a reflective surface, a distorted image was captured and sent to Jerry’s overwhelmed mind.
Hours passed, the street slept aside from a few early commuters startled as Jerry called out to him through the blasting horn. One braved a creeping walk to the truck to glance inside the cab. To Jerry, the frightened woman was looking directly through one of his dozen eyes. He spoke in a horn, she stumbled backwards, nearly falling onto Jerry’s front lawn. She hurried away.
The phone rang again. Jerry willed for a hand to move to it, still unaware that no hand existed.
Jerry’s wife emerged through the front door and gazed at the truck, at Jerry. He called with his horn and she stiffened. She’d been crying. Her delicate, beautiful face more fragile than he’d ever seen it. He called again. She ran across the lawn and threw open the driver’s side door. A flurry of bizarre sensations followed as the shimmering vibrations awoke feeling throughout Jerry’s strange, new body. He saw through the tilted rearview mirror as she plucked up the cell phone and slammed the door shut. Through the reflection of the driver’s side window, Jerry saw the only woman he had ever loved flee from him and retreat back into their home.
He was certain he’d shouted her name at least seven times, but instead he’d only honked his horn.
Police cruisers arrived. Neighbors gathered on the periphery of their property, some concerned, some curious. Jerry now believed he was dead, watching as a spirit trapped into the street’s gutter like the settled morning mist.
He did not call out again, recalling the terror in his wife’s face. He only thought. No memory of the night before existed within his mind, but a vague idea that he’d suffered somehow.
A bird landed on his hood, but he did not understand the steel as being a part of his body. Not yet. The bird walked, its claws clicking and scraping. Jerry felt the vibrations. It was not like pain nor pleasure, but it was something tangible and real. He began to dread as his new existence began to untangle within his mind.
A police officer opened his door again. The heavy man leaned onto the truck seat, digging and searching through Jerry’s every crevice. Jerry felt the weight. Through the reflection on the rear window, Jerry saw his glove compartment open. He saw the mess of maps and insurance verification forms that he kept meaning to clean out. Jerry finally understood. The horror woke his body.
Jerry screamed. The shrill horn terrified the officer, who scrambled outside and fell down to the grass. The officer kicked the door closed. The doors locked, the engine growled, Jerry became aware of every bolt, every wire, every drop of fuel and puff of exhaust. He felt how the tires pressed onto the road, how the spinning gears engaged.
The police did not have time to get to their cars by the time Jerry disappeared down the road.
WHERE DO YOU GO?
Church OR Medical Research Lab?
*If you are interested in participating in a Choose Your Own Adventure Commission, email charles@literatipressok.com for pricing and more information.
