Tiffany’s polished red
thumbnail found the equally red button on the dash and pushed. Again, nothing happened… not even a revving
noise. Her husband—his thinning, mousy
hair caught in a light breeze as he bent over the holo-reader—sighed. His finger jabbed at the screen, presumably
scrolling through the owner’s manual to the hovercraft the couple were
currently sitting in. She sighed,
leaning back in her seat. With another
huff of aggravation, her husband began to shake his head at the screen in his
hands, as if it were arguing with him.
“Do you have the key turned?” he asked without looking at
his wife.
She closed her eyes.
Tiffany was not good with heights.
The fact that she could successfully drive a hovercraft of any sort between point A and point B was
nothing short of a miracle… so the idea of being in a brand-spanking new model
of craft that flew a good three hundred feet above last year’s models was
making her feel sick.
“Yes, Herbert. I
have the key turned,” she said in a monotonous tone.
Herbert huffed again, jabbing some more at the
screen. With a couple of deep breaths,
she finally managed a peek over the side of the craft, looking straight
down. Gasping, she immediately realized
that that was a mistake. Other hovercrafts
zoomed by so far below the two that they were totally unaware of their
presence, stuck hovering several hundred feet above the nearest parking
port. She slammed her back against her driver’s
seat, trying to calm her increasingly erratic breathing. Herbert did not even glance at her way.
“Well,” Tiffany said with a hollow laugh, “at least we’re
not plummeting to our deaths.”
“Yeah,” Herbert responded without a hint of
amusement. “That’s the new thrusters on
the bottom of the craft. Exclusive to
this year’s model. Guaranteed to still
run, even if the craft won’t.”
“Why would someone just want to hover in midair?” his
wife muttered.
Now Herbert looked at her, one brow raised. “It’s a safety precaution, Tiff.”
She rolled her eyes.
“I’m aware of that. I’m just
saying. They must have very little
confidence in their new and better model if they have to install
something like that.”
“It’s not that, Tiffany.
This car has the highest safety rating—”
And that’s when Tiffany stopped listening. Instead, she glared straight ahead at the
steering wheel. She missed their other
hovercraft, the one they had traded not hours ago for this hunk of junk. The couple was just seven clicks away from
the dealership, and now they were stuck and broken down.
“Damn it!” Herbert yelled, throwing the holo-reader into
the floorboard, causing Tiffany to jump.
“There’s not a damn thing in that manual to help.”
With a groan and her face turned skywards, Tiffany
reached out and held the button on the dash down. Again, not a sound.
“That’s not gonna work, Tiff. You can stop trying.”
“I don’t appreciate you snapping at me. I don’t see you trying anything.”
He scoffed, turning his head away from her.
“Hey, I’m not the one who wanted this stupid hovercraft
in the first place. I liked our old
one!”
He whirled back towards her, nostrils flaring. “It was out of date.”
“No, it wasn’t! It
had everything that this one has… oh, wait… I’m wrong there. Our old one ran! You’ve always done
this! Gotta have the latest
technology. What is it with you?”
Ignoring her—as he always did when he knew his wife was
on the verge of winning an argument—he bent forward and picked up the
holo-reader. Tiffany resisted a strong
urge to scream as she crossed her arms and turned, very deliberately, away from
him. A few moments of silence passed as
he simply sat there, scrolling through the manual yet again.
“Aha!” he cried finally, causing her to jump again.
“What?” she asked.
Without bothering to answer, he reached down to a small
lever that was located between the two seats.
He jerked it to the left and then pushed it up. Smiling triumphantly, he motioned towards the
ignition button. Tiffany pressed it, and
the hovercraft roared to life.
“We had it in the wrong gear. That’s all,” he said, as if he had known all
along.
With her hands tightening around the steering wheel so much
that her knuckles turned white, she made a sharp turn in the direction they had
come from.
“W-what are doing, Tiff?”
“I’m taking this stupid, overly sophisticated piece of crap back to the dealer and getting our
old craft back! Wrong gear… of all the
stupid things!”
“But, Tiff…”
Tiffany shot him a look so full of fire that he only
smiled weakly.
“Um… if you hurry, honey, you can beat their closing
time.”
I wrote this one back in 2015, inspired by a story my aunt had told my mom once about how her brand-new model car kept breaking down. She kept having to take it back to the dealer so they could "work out the bugs." (It was leased.) If you liked this, let me know.
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