The Car

This is a short writing exercise I was given around jealousy.

The car’s horn blared in the night, echoing repeatedly as Marc headbutted the steering wheel again and again.

Beep.
Beep.
Beep.

How could they be so stupid? How dare they?

Geoff?!
Geoff?!

How could they give it to him? How blind could they actually be?

That snivelling bastard had always been the golden boy, always been the favourite. All because Geoff’s kids went to the same shitty public school as Diedre’s did. All because he’d married Vanessa, fucking silver spoon Vanessa, who’d never done a day’s work in her life. Turning up at the company picnic with a car full of Marks and Spencer hampers for everyone. The conceited cunt. Buying her way to the top, just like her daddy.

Marc rested his head on his hands, his breathing laboured and heavy. Rain hammered on the windscreen. His gaze drifted out of the glass, drawn to the streetlight casting an orange glow over the near-empty car park. It was late. Only a couple of other cars remained now, Geoff's and Diedre’s.

They were probably fucking as well, poetic. Geoff would screw her like he’d screwed Marc out of his job.

Marc’s eyes followed the large crack spreading from his dashboard up to the top right-hand corner. He watched as the rain moved along the ground like marching troops on their way to war. Their deaths inevitable.

Inevitable. That’s what Marc’s life had been. Ever since he’d left school, the only luck he’d seemed to have was bad.

It all could have been so different.
It all should have been so different.

Now here he was, on the wrong side of forty, stuck in a shitty job, inputting numbers given to him by some wanker into a spreadsheet, so that some other dickhead could talk about percentage increases.

Twice he’d been passed over now for promotion.
Fucking twice.

Then Geoff. Mr Perfect Geoff comes along, with his flash car, and his rich wife, schmoozing with the other leadership team cunts at the Christmas party, volunteering for every project under the sun.

Well, it wasn’t fair.

Where is my chance to shine, eh?

Where is my chance to shine, Geoff, you knobber?

They’d gone for the interview at the same time. Geoff was first, of course, they’d want to make sure precious Geoff got the chance to take all the credit for everything, wouldn’t they?

You know the wanker had the audacity to actually smile at me and say “Good luck.” Can you believe that?

That fucking arsehole. That cocky bastard.

He had only been in the company for a couple of years, and already he’s been handpicked for this role.

It wasn’t fair.

If Marc had the same chances as Geoff did, he’d be fucking chairman of the board by now.

It’s just not fair!

If Geoff had been subject to Marc’s mother, and to Marc’s father, and to Marc’s education, he’d be lucky to be cleaning up dogshit in the park, let alone taking Marc’s fucking job.

Ten fucking years Marc had given them.

Ten. Fucking. Years.

And what had happened in those ten years? He’d married; she’d left. Took the kids, and now she wouldn’t see him because she was scared? Scared?! Yeah, he’d come back from work tired, and yeah maybe he drank a bit too much some days to ease some of the harder days, but they had no idea what it was like, no idea what it meant to be the one that other people relied on.

Sure, he’d shouted, he’d thrown things, but he’d never laid a finger on them, which is more than he could say for his own upbringing. Ungrateful bastards. He gave up the drinking, and the smoking and he did it for them. He had put in the extra shifts, tried to be a good dad, and how was he repaid? She ran off with some other country club executive, citing that he was never there! I was trying to make a life for you!

This job had been his chance, his chance to show them all that he was as good as they were. That they’d all made a mistake not believing in him, Now it lay in tatters.

Well, now it’s time to balance out the universe.

Time to even out some of the misfortune that he’d been subject to his entire life. How they must laugh at him, well he’d show them all.

Marc held his breath as Geoff walk down the steps, his fancy tailored Italian suit gloriously protected by his brand-named umbrella.
Diedre stood at the top of the steps and waved as Geoff began walking across the car park, striding with a grin towards his Jaguar, with its custom number plate, Geoff pressed his cunty keyfob as the engine purred into life, heaven forbid Geoff actually had to get into his car to turn it on. It started first time.

First time.

Marc’s car hadn’t started first time for months. Marc watched as Geoff got closer, the jag was parked directly opposite Marc’s shitmobile.

Well, it was now at least. It hadn’t been earlier in the day.

Now that most of the staff had gone home, Marc had been able to re-park his car wherever he wanted, and there was nowhere else in the world he would rather be than right here, right now.

Time to put it all right.

Marc turned the key in the ignition.

It roared into life on its first try.

Marc smiled, and put the car into gear.