MONDEO

Written by Ben Tallon

Lucinda sat in the darkness of her parked Ford Mondeo and watched the drifts of rain swirl over and around the streetlight for a full two minutes until movement caught her eye.

Had it been a leaf?

The only other vehicle in the supermarket car park was an empty Audi. Several of the least mushy ones - still crisp and yellow - blew hesitantly along the ground with the carrier bags.

Not that. What then? 

It happened again. 

She put on her glasses and peered at the car. Saw some thigh. It bucked and rocked, like it was trying desperately to climb into the back seat. They were doing it. 

She turned the key as quietly as she could. Wanted no part of their steam. To her utter despair, the lights came on. Full beam. Look at me! Look this way! They would think her a regular pervert. All she’d wanted to do was watch the happy families doing the weekly food shop, to try remember what it felt like to enjoy something so simple. 

By now they’d all gone home but she liked the reliability and order of these car parks. She’d stayed on to watch the late shift staff get picked up by loved ones. 

Before the couple had the chance to see her face, she stomped down on the accelerator and turned far too hard. The leather sole of her second-hand flats slid off the brake and the adrenaline turned her leg to stone. 

In slow, inevitable motion, the Mondeo idly collided into the side door of the Audi. The window through which she’d seen the thigh cracked into a white spider’s web and the door buckled. 

By the time the horny couple were barking and snarling through her windshield, safari style, the young man buckling up his jeans, Lucinda’s head was down, blaring the horn, sobbing hard through her nose about so much more than the crash.