"I'm sorry but I cannot accept this check" the clerk said. Jing had just made his way up the stairs to hand his payment to the loan handler when the clerk spoke politely but firmly. Jing was so surprised that he stumbled forward and the clerk put out a hand to help him up.
"Officially the window is closed. I can't accept this at this time. I'm sorry but we will deal with this on Monday".
The clerk dusted himself off, and neatly made his way down the stairs, entered his car and drove off. Jing hadn't moved the entire time, he had sat down on the spot and watched the clerk drive off while angry tears dripped onto the check in his hands.
It's not his fault, I missed the opening hours. He's just doing his job.
...
Maybe I should reach back out to the lawyer.
Jing pulled out his phone and immediately stiffened as he remembered how he got here. He checked the clock and began thinking.
I definitely just... flew? But how did that work? Was I hallucinating?
The traffic that he could see from here on the bridge convinced him otherwise. He turned and looked at the Northern Bridge, which was still very incomplete, with whole sections of road missing. Finally he looked at the clock again, it had just now ticked to 6:05 PM.
Yeah whatever happened actually happened.
He sat on the steps and navigated back to the app he had used on the way here. On the screen was a simple map with indicators of where policemen were driving. Nothing special at all, exactly how he remembered from using it when it was first shown to him.
He fiddled with it for about a minute, trying to start whatever magical navigation he had seen, or summon the voice that gave him the instructions. Eventually, he sighed in frustration and got up.
I need food. The lawyer's probably out of the office for the day so I'll leave him a message tomorrow morning.
Jing stood up, stretched, and looked at the sun setting on the horizon. He savored the last few moments before he would once again be completely destitute, and made his way over to his car.
He slumped in his seat and stared at the dashboard. It had accompanied him through high school and college, maintained by his constant efforts to keep it running, and many different favors from more car inclined friends. With some help, he had upgraded the sound system a few years ago, giving him crystal clear music to jam to while driving. On the rest of the interior, there were many different small nicks and marks, with a couple of small stickers on the passenger side. Its exterior was similar, the silver coating had been touched up a few times, with tiny marks where pebbles had hit the car denting the front and the sides. For such an old vehicle, he kept it remarkably clean. It was also one of the last ties to his family, a gift from an uncle who went missing soon after he had given Jing the car.
"Man it's going to really suck losing you" said Jing, patting the wheel.
"Wait, what do you mean lose me?!" A disembodied voice said back to him
"AAAAAH" Jing jumped in the seat hitting his head on the roof of the car.
"OW" "OWWW" went both Jing and the voice.
After making sure he hadn't given himself a concussion, Jing looked around the car. The voice had come from inside of the car, but it wasn't on. The voice had to have come from inside the car.
"I *am* the car, and please don't hit me with your head like that again, it quite hurt!" the voice said.
"What the !@%$ is happening, and what do you mean it hurts?! You're a car!"
Jing continued to look around him, trying to find some sort of camera, or hidden speakerphone.
Ah, I'm talking to my car now. I think it may be time to lie down.
"After the favor I just did for you I didn't expect to be treated like this!" the voice complained.
Jing swallowed his retort as he realized his position. Talking car or not, whatever or whoever made what happened on the way here did seem to be working in his interest.
"Uh yeah, sorry about that. I'm just kind of wound up because the guy didn't take my check"
So basically I'm losing everything.
"Well, thank you for apologizing, you are under a lot of stress"
...
...
"So uh, what's your name?" Jing broke the silence.
"I'm not quite sure, I feel like I woke up only about an hour ago."
"Oh, uh. how did that happen I guess?"
"I just heard the words 'I need to make it to the bank in 20 minutes' and I felt like I really wanted to make that happen"
The voice's tone changed at this point. It seemed to have a warmer tone than its previously robotic one.
"Even though I just woke up, I remember all of the time you took to take care of me. I didn't know why you needed to be there but you seemed really stressed out about it".
Jing paused for a moment, a bit emotional that his car was showing appreciation for his efforts.
It does certainly feel good to be praised for my efforts.
This book was originally published on Royal Road. Check it out there for the real experience.
"Too bad they might take you away soon."
Jing explained the whole story regarding his loans and debt collectors, missing today's payment due to the office closing early and what the debt collectors might do in the near future.
"I didn't realize it was that bad!" his car responded to it all. "What are we going to do?"
Jing put his head on the wheel. "I'm not really sure there is anything we can do. I'm gonna call the lawyer in the morning to see if I can somehow force them to accept my payment. But tonight, I think all I can do is get something to eat and go to bed."
Jing jerked back up into his chair and asked something that had been bothering him this whole conversation.
"What was that by the way?"
"What do you mean 'that'?"
"That giant crazy bridge that got me here! I felt like I was going to die the entire time!"
"Well first of all, as long as I could assist you, you were never going to fall. But second, we were in something like another dimension"
Jing wanted to immediately reject what the voice said, citing scientific articles about the sheer amounts of energy needed to try to do something like that before he remembered that he was just there himself.
The voice continued to explain. "The bridge itself was manifested by wishes"
Wishes?
"In that dimension, every single thought of 'man I wish there was no traffic' or 'Man I wish that bridge was finished' or even 'I wish I could get from A to B faster' all form an idea of a bridge that lets you drive straight to wherever you want".
Huh?
Jing was reeling at the idea of something both so outlandish and so... convenient.
"So what is every wish that happens here an actual thing out there? Is there some sort of whole universe made of wishes?"
"Yes! Do you want to go there?" The voice happily responded.
"Uh, sur-?"
Before he finished his sentence, his car made a cheering sound as it turned on by itself, and the windows of the car turned dark. Specks of light resembling shooting stars raced around his car, and he was filled with the same sense of vertigo that he had earlier when he was on the bridge, as if something wasn't quite right with gravity. But as soon as he got his bearings and looked around more clearly, the lights had already faded, and he was at.. The bank?
"We're here! Wanna take a look outside?" The voice cheerfully said to him.
Jing stepped out of his car and stepped onto the ground.He felt a cool sensation wisp around his ankles as a thin mist-like cloud dispersed under his feet. He looked around and saw that all of the cars around him had disappeared, and that while he could see some people in the distance, he felt like he couldn't get a good grasp of what they looked like.
Maybe I'll get a better view from higher up.
Jing quickly stepped up the stairs and glanced around. Having been in this exact position just a few moments ago, he could tell that the view around him had changed greatly.
While the buildings themselves were still there, they seemed to not fully retain their solid form. They appeared to be made from smoke. He peered towards the restaurant section of the island. It glowed bright enough that he could vaguely see light penetrating what was a solid building in the normal world. In the wind, he could smell cooking smoke, and he could hear cheering sounds.
"Fun place to be right?" A voice said from behind and below him.
Jing jumped forward and away from the sound, before looking back and seeing a miniature version of his car on the ground.
"It'd be difficult to be up here if I was my regular size so I shrunk myself down!"
Jing squatted down to look closely and saw all of the small stickers and scratches that indeed proved this was his car.
"How the hell did you do that?, and where are we anyways?"
"Oh that's easy uh..."
The miniature car moved back and forth for a moment before finally answering:
"I'm really not sure actually. I feel like I remembered that I can do this but not really why?"
Jing stared incredulously at the car for a few seconds, until it began to protest.
"Hey don't look at me like that! I really don't know!" It drove off down the steps and back onto the parking lot in front of the ghostly smoky bank.
Jing got ready to get up, and noticed a shining stone on the ground. It hadn't been there a moment ago. He reached out, and plucked it from the ground.
He tossed it in his hands before putting it in his pocket. It looked pretty enough to be a decent paperweight at least.
When he reached the bottom steps, a great sound came from within his body
"GRRWOWWOOWOL"
His stomach began finally protesting the continuous delays in obtaining food.
"Let's head downtown. It smelled fantastic over there" Jing said to his car as he got in.
"Roger roger!" he saw an 'o7' appear on the console of his dashboard when he got in, and drove off towards the sounds and the lights. He moved slowly and obeyed the traffic laws even though it didn't seem like there were many cars around.
On the top of the bank, a number of figures looked at the car as it drove away.
"A new driver?" said one, excited
"Whose affiliation?" asked another, emotionless.
"I didn't see an emblem." said a third.
"Quality?" asked the second one again.
"Mediocre at best. He's following traffic rules in the Left Side." scoffed the fourth one.
"His physical car changed size though. His innate power?" inquired the first one.
"Not enough to be a problem" said the second one.
"Enough. We need to get to our races. We can talk about him later" said the fifth.
"I don't have to race today! I'm gonna go take a look!" said the first.
The fifth one was silent for a moment until they responded "As long as you make a report. It will count towards your duties"
"Making my way downtown, walking fast faces pass and I'm food-bound ♫ doo doo doo doo doo doo do." Jing sang along to the song as he made his way towards the direction he saw from the top of the stairs.
doo doo doo doo doo doo do
"And I still need you."
doo doo doo doo doo doo do
"And I still miss you!"
Over the last couple of minutes, he had begun humming along to some tunes while he drove, until the voice started singing along! At this point in the trip, they had begun fully singing each song like a duet. After the song had ended Jing thought out loud.
"Man its like you know every part of the song I don't sing"
"Jing, I've been with you for like 10 years, even if I wasn't really conscious at that time"
Oh. Right.
Jing was about to offer to buy a drink for them when he remembered that they were a car.
Choking back his first question, he asked another he'd been forgetting to ask
"Hey, we mentioned it before, but calling you 'car' is kind of... impersonal. What should I call you?"
"I think you tried calling me a bunch of different names when you got me way back when".
"Uh.. yeah I think I remember that"
Jing busily suppressed a multitude of silly names in his mind that he remembered trying to use back when he played more racing games.
He finally recalled a simple name that he had thought when he first had gotten this car, a pun on a manufacturer name.
"I think I'll call you Uru"