Man's Laughter

         “Who are you? What do you want from me?” I demanded. 

         My fingers clenched the steering wheel as if I were trying to wring out an imagined source of water contained within the stitched leather wrapping.  The accelerator was pressed firmly to the floor and the engine roared with all the fury of a tiger claiming its prey.  I could see nothing of my surroundings other than blurred forms that flashed in my headlights before being lost again into the starless void of night.

         “Who says I have to want something from you?”  The man replied with a sly smirk that made the hairs on my arms stand on end.  Sitting rather casually in the passenger’s seat, he watched me with unfettered amusement as I reacted to his sudden and inexplicable appearance in my car.  I hadn’t stopped for hours, yet there he was with that damn smile.  The weight of his mocking eyes upon me was enough to crush even the most resilient of spirits.

         “Then why are you here?”  My voice was in panic, though I had attempted to sound stern.

         He grinned, baring more teeth than I’d assumed possible in a man.  His eyes were hidden in shadow.  “You know why I’m here.”

         My gaze was immediately locked onto the crack in my windshield that was spreading from its epicenter in a pattern that was a marvel to behold yet filled me with as much dread as the man’s mysterious emergence.  It looked as if a spider had spun a web within the fragile pane of glass that threatened to capture my soul and devour it whole.  Feeling the man’s delighted glare upon me, I could not help but realize they were connected in some horrendous way.

         “You’re here to punish me,” I guessed with immense dread.

         The man, if that is what he was, laughed as if I had regaled him with the cleverest joke ever told.  It was a hearty laugh, deep and strong.  My stomach threatened to claw its way up my throat.  It took almost all of my focus to maintain control of my speeding vehicle as glimmers of roadside markers appeared and vanished again into the darkness.

         “No.”  He spoke at last as he attempted to contain himself.  He brushed away his giddy tears with a single wiry finger.  “No.”  He chuckled again briefly as, I assume, he replayed my statement in his mind once more.  “That’s not my department.  To be honest, I’m just here to enjoy the show.”  His laughter continued, igniting my temper.

         “You think this is funny?”  My voice boomed and my face flushed red hot but he merely looked back at me with belittling amusement.

         “Yes.  From my perspective, it’s quite entertaining.  Though I can understand why you’re unable to appreciate the comedic nature of your current situation but, trust me, you will.”

         “There’s nothing funny about this.”

         He grinned once more.  The raised hairs on my arms threatened to uproot themselves and flee, taking the last of my sanity with them.  Surely, I had gone mad.

         “Again,” he responded, “from your point of view.”

         “Who are you?”

         “Not important.”

         I swallowed hard, attempting to return my stomach to its rightful place.  “What are you?”

         “More important.  But I don’t think I’ll say.  What’s life without a little mystery, wouldn’t you agree?”  He giggled at his own cunning.  The spiderlike crack in my windshield grew broader.

         “Damn it!  I don’t want mystery!”  My voice was a bellow so filled with power even a lion would have grown timid in my presence.

         In my distraction, I nearly ran my car into the back of a slow moving station wagon.  I cut hard to the left at the last moment and raced by harmlessly.  In my rearview, I could see the elderly woman driver spouting what I could only imagine was a barrage of obscenities I was grateful not to have heard in regards to my reckless behavior.  Still, I returned her harsh words with some of my own, flabbergasted by my own loss of control.  Surely this demonic tormentor was getting the better of me.

         The man joyfully watched the woman’s muted tirade.  “See?  That’s fantastic!  I knew you wouldn’t disappoint me.”  He laughed again, clutching his gut as if it were about to burst.  My grip on the wheel only tightened.

         “I want you out of my car!”  My outburst had done nothing to stifle the man’s pleasure in my suffering, however.

         He pretended to contemplate my request for a second before shaking his head.  “Sorry, my friend but you are just too much fun.  Look at that vein in your forehead!  It looks like it's about to burst!”  His chortle was maddening.  The crack only expanded.

         I remained silent and simply drove.  My every action seemed to give this inhuman man no end of pleasure.  It was my intent to become as unentertaining as possible.  I became as still as a grave, focusing only on the road ahead.  Still, I felt his amused eyes upon me.  The crack in the window spread, nearly filling my field of vision.  There was no ignoring it now.

         The man sighed with a chuckle.  “Oh, the silent treatment.  Everybody tries that, you know.  It never works.”

         I gave him no reply.  I didn’t even acknowledge his presence.

         He smiled.  “Have it your way.  You can’t run forever.  This ride will end sooner or later.  It’s only a matter of time.”

         “What’s that supposed to mean?” I felt compelled to ask.

         His smirk grew once again into his toothy grin.  “Think carefully, my friend.”

         “We are not friends!  You may sit there and look like a man but you’re not!  You’re a monster, whatever you are!”

         This time, his happy visage only barely veiled his disdain for me.  “Nevertheless, you stupid creature, we are linked, you and I.  I’m not the only monster here.”

         “What are you talking about?”

         “Think about it.”

         My mind raced.  The past was all a blur.  Why was I here?  Where had I been going?  I could not say.  All that seemed to have ever existed was this rolling metal frame in which we rode and the fleeting images streaking beyond fragile panes of glass.  Then my eyes darted to the windshield and the expanding fracture that had nearly consumed it.

         The man laughed as my bewilderment turned to horrid recollection.  My stomach once again attempted to make an escape.  I remembered their faces now, wide eyed and frightened beyond reason.  The angered woman in the other car and the giggling man to my right, I knew them both but only briefly.

         “It’s all my fault,” was all I could utter in not more than a whisper as the echo of screeching tires reverberated in my ears.  Still, I couldn’t get myself to release my foot from the pedal.

         “Damn straight.”  He chuckled again at my horror.

         “I killed them both.  I killed you.”

         His teeth nearly shined in the pale moonlight filtering into the car.  “Not exactly.  True enough, the old hag is dead but her son, the poor bastard whose image I have most graciously borrowed, is spread out on the highway as we speak with a rather nasty crack in his skull and most of his vital fluids staining the pavement.”

         “I’m a murderer.”  I spoke without looking at him.  My focus was intently centered on the snaking fracture spreading through my windshield.

         “Oh, no,” he replied with a giggle.  “Don’t beat yourself up about it.  It was an accident.  It’s not your fault the fool led his senile mother into the path of an oncoming car.  If you ask me, they had it coming.”

         “Will you stop patronizing me?” I shouted.  “I killed them!  Don’t you understand?  It’s my fault.”

         “Perhaps.  I doubt you’ll get more than a manslaughter charge, though, when they find you.  So, relax.  Kick back and enjoy the ride.  I know I am.”

         “No.  I have to stop.  I have to go back.”  I tried to let off the accelerator but it was as if the blasted thing had a hold on me.  My fingers refused to relinquish their grasp on the wheel.  “What is this?”  My voice was filled with sheer terror.  “What are you doing?”

         The man snickered gleefully.  “Sorry, my friend.  There’s no going back.  Where we’re going is so much more interesting.”

         His laugh was all consuming, all penetrating.  I could feel it reverberating within my skull as my vision blurred.  Warm blood trickled down my face and I could do nothing more than join him in his giddy madness.  As my weakened windshield finally burst, sparkling shards of glass rained down upon me like a million shooting stars and I couldn’t help but laugh.

         “What the hell is wrong with this guy?” one of the paramedics wondered with disgust as they tore me, still lost in grieved hysterics, from my vehicle.  No mention was made of my tormentor in the seat next to me.

         “Who cares?” the other responded grumpily.  “The guy’s a total nut job.  Let’s get him out of here.”

         With great effort on their part, they hoisted me, my limbs flailing wildly, onto a gurney and strapped me down.  I was wheeled passed the covered forms of my victims not twenty yards from my car, where I had been found with a vice grip on the steering wheel and my foot pressing on the brake.  Until my sudden outburst of laughter, they had thought me catatonic. 

         Even to this day, I sit in my cold dark cell and stare back at the man, his inhuman mouth stretched out in a Cheshire smile.  He mocks me all the while, reminding me of my atrocity.  When faced with such tragedy and overwhelming grief, what more could I do than join in the man’s laughter?