Tainted Metal

The farm sat beside Highway 435. Or maybe it would be more accurate to say the road had been paved next to the farm sometime in the mid-1960s.

A long gravel driveway led up to the property, stretching about five hundred meters. If a passing driver’s gaze wandered toward the buildings, they would see a small, tidy clay-brick house, surrounded by neatly stacked hay bales.

The man had been sitting in his car for nearly an hour, parked opposite the gravel road, under the shade of the trees. The car was old and red—the kind that rust had already tasted, its brown teeth gnawing away at the metal, tearing off bigger and bigger chunks. The windows, like the paint, were thickly coated with dust and the remains of bugs that had fallen victim to countless drives.

The driver-side front window was rolled down just a crack. Smoke seeped into the cabin through the opening. The engine idled steadily. A thin plastic tube had been barely noticedly clamped to the end of the exhaust. Like a quiet, silent snake, it slithered along the underside of the chassis, then climbed up to the window gap, snaking into the interior.

The smoke had already filled the cabin completely. The man sat motionless. Tears ran down his face, dripping from his chin onto his brown sweater. His chest heaved slightly, but his cloudy gaze never left the house.

In his hands, he clutched a newspaper clipping from a few days earlier.

“Dr. Vecsernyás’s Latest Triumph: Drunk Driver Acquitted—Yet the Little Girl Ran Into the Street Illegally,” the headline read.

The car’s engine kept chugging relentlessly. The creeping smoke silently poured its poison into the cabin. The man took a few more shallow breaths before his tear-streaked face fell against the door frame. His gasping stopped.

Only the soft rhythm of the engine echoed along the dark, winding road.