The Reinjection of Life
Olivia Bellerose turned the key once more; her body leaned forward and pressed against the tattered leather steering wheel. Her other hand desperately rubbed the dusty dash board, trying to coax the ancient 1988 Olds Cutlass Supreme to function. However the car just whined in resistance while its owner pleaded to a higher power to somehow make the car work.
The car had been passed through three generations and carries the battle scars from each of it’s owners. The origins of the cars first arrival into the family happen to be that it was purchased by Olivia’s Grandparents at a used car lot on the outskirts of Dallas, Texas. The seller was a shady man nicknamed Moe, who owned Moe’s motorized used vehicles. From her grandparent’s later description, Moe was rather stubborn and would not lower his price however this did not hinder them from receiving the car at a price lower than what Moe truly wanted.
The car was then passed down to Olivia’s parents when her Grandparents got a new car two years after they purchased the Cutlass. Olivia’s parents drove it for a year before they passed it down to Olivia’s older brother. Olivia’s brother, Thomas, abused the car and simply wasn’t good at following the rules of the road. Having gotten into three accidents in his freshman year of high school, five in the next, two in his junior year and then seven in his senior year. The severity of the accidents ranged from broken tail lights tothe car now sits at a . To add to the physical damage, he also used the Cutlass as is mobile pleasure palace while he was dating various girls in high school.
When Tom finally went off to college and their parents got him a new car, the Cutlass was passed on to Olivia with damage and all. Although it did break down often and the parts were rather expensive and it emitted a puff of black smoke on ignition and it squealed on tight corners and the breaks didn’t always work; it was a semi decent piece of machinery.
However, today was not one of those days.
From outside Olivia’s deteriorating car, Mrs. Martin carefully stepped off the rickety stairs of her deck. Or rather, the stairs were fine but the size of the elderly woman made it a predicament for her to travel up and down the old stairs. The woman clutched on to the white paint chipped railing, the other hand gripping her over sized worn out baby blue bathrobe to herself as she moved down the stairs. While the woman managed to successfully get down the stairs without toppling over, Olivia realized that her efforts were futile.
She grudgingly pulled the key out from the ignition and leaned back in the faded leather seat, sighing softly at the prospect of being late for the first day of school. She cringed at the thought and turned her head away, trying to look else were to keep her mind away from the idea. She tiredly glanced out the streaked glass window of the car to see her neighbor waddling to the end of her drive way to retrieve the morning paper, the plastic pink curlers in her gray hair swaying to a degree while the woman moved.
The morning sunlight set the atmosphere a light orange color, dripping everything in a light tangerine color. The air was cold that morning and it sent a chill down Olivia’s spine, and caused frost to cling anything and everything it could. The icy air could possibly the reason why she could not start her car. Although, at the cars current condition, it seemed like any could cause the car to not start.
Olivia’s brows furrowed as she remembered that she was living next to a pink palace left over from the 50’s. Her neighbor’s house was painted a pale pink with white trimming. An aged willow tree stood in the front yard giving shade to the porch which held pastel pink deck furniture. To the side of the house there was the garage, which of course was the same shade of light pink as the house. In the drive way leading to the garage, there was an old classic car with (as expected) pink paint and white finishing touches, along with sliver chrome.
Meanwhile, Olivia lived in the corner apartment of the brown brick apartment complex next to the pink palace.
With a dull sigh, the young girl gazed over the old woman’s house in envy. Although she didn’t quite agree with the color scheme, she was jealous of the fact that the old woman owned a house, something that Olivia wanted but couldn’t yet have.
Her eyes widened and her back unconsciously straightened up as she noticed something propped up against the side of the house. She almost hadn’t noticed but there was a soft pink bike with a white basket. The bike was at least twenty years old because from what Olivia could tell, the gears and the design were not a newer model and it looked like it hadn’t been used in a while. Within the few seconds of discovery, Olivia had already started to form a plan in her mind.
Haphazardly Olivia gathered her things together and unbuckled her seat belt as she climbed out of her car with her needed possessions, shutting the door after. In the rushed movements, Olivia accidentally dropped her English books, which caused her to curse out loud. She hurriedly pulled out her keys and after a few missed tries, locked the door. She swooped down and picked up her items, not even bothering to brush the dirt off.She then dashed over to speak with her neighbor, who was still standing in the morning light reading the morning news.
After exchanging a few sentences and thank yous, her neighbor allowed her to use her bike and said that she would also keep an eye on Olivia’s car.
Olivia then sprinted over the bike, checking her watch as she did so. It was ten minutes away from the morning announcements, and then class would start. The school as twenty-five minutes away. As she placed the books in the white basket, she determined that the morning announcements, although they were indeed important, that being in class held more importance.
The newspaper in Mrs. Martin’s hand went slack under the diminishing amount of pressure on the fibers. She watched Olivia through her pink rimmed glasses, memories of the pastel pink bike returning to her mind. She found herself watching as Olivia sped past and then rode off into the distance with the pink bike. It wasn’t until Olivia was a dot in the horizon when Mrs. Martin’s legs started to throb, and she realized that she had been standing outside for a rather long time. With that thought sheturned and toddled back into her pink palace, the white paint chipped stairs groaning in agony on her way up.
