The growing silence that ensued was dreadful. The air was so tense, it seemed as though every movement made was a move in a chess game. Why did she move there? Was that supposed to mean something? And it had only been an hour. Three more hours confined within the walls of the gray-green steel car loomed ominously. The dad, Mark, was driving while the daughter, Lilly, was the passenger.
The clear skies outside the car pleased Mark. They pissed off Lilly. If it was at least raining, then she wouldn’t have felt like the most miserable person in the world at the time. Somebody else would be miserable because of the rain, and to her, that was an undeniable fact.
What was also a fact, at least by Lilly’s standards, was that teenage girls and their dads do not get a long. Never have, never will. So a four hour car trip with a hateful relationship crammed in one car amounted to the Silent War. In the Silent War, the emotions were so potent, their vibes penetrated further than any words could have, and therefore, no words were spoken. And when it came to Silent Wars, Mark put aside his fatherly character with all its intentions of setting a mature example for his daughter. He stooped to his daughter’s immature, teenage ways and followed her lead in the War.
This particular father and daughter in this particular gray-green steel car were engaged in a particularly silent war.
Mark turned the radio on. Lily considered this a victory as he was obviously unable to handle the Silence. “Ohhhh. What now,” she whispered into the passenger window. However, this victory wouldn’t suffice. So she changed the station from the droning NPR news to her main man, Lil Wayne. It took a mere two seconds before Mark changed it back. She sucked her teeth, making a loud squelching sound. She reached her hand out and changed it to Lil Wayne again. He reached out his hand, slapped hers, and changed it back. She slapped his hand and changed it again.
Slap. Change. Again. Slap. Change. Again.
As the slapping and button-pressing intensified, the
Simultaneously, as though contaminated by the enemy, they each wiped his or her hands on the smooth, leather seats of the gray-green steel car. There was a brief, incredibly awkward moment of eye contact, but the two briskly looked away.
To Lilly’s dismay, their battle had ended with the radio playing, “…. the polls continue to show Obama with a strong lead over McCain…” This meant that her dad had won, and the war was at a tie: one-to-one.
As the sky outside grew dark, and Lilly thought out her next battle strategy. The devil emerged from the shadows of her mind, and without a moment’s hesitance, she put her plan into action. She whipped up her book from the carpeted floor of the car, slyly reached up to the ceiling of the gray-green steel car, and switched the light on. As she opened her book with sudden extreme intent on finishing the thing, she could feel his piercing eyes penetrating the skin on her face. Before his anger could singe a hole in her face, he surprisingly resumed to concentrating on the road, leaving the light on.
Victorious! Lilly was leading two-to-one.
Suddenly, a horn sounded again. It wasn’t one of those, Get Out Of The Way, Damnit, horns. It was more of a, Watch Out! horn, and it was coming from behind. Mark looked frantically into the rearview mirror, but couldn’t see anything; the light was blocking his view.
Two seconds later, two terrified screams later and one crash later, Mark and Lilly sat in the gray-green steel car, which sat in a ditch. The two looked into one another’s frightened, shocked and tear-filled eyes. They each marveled at the still existing life sitting at one another’s side.
The two continued to sit in silence, but the tone that this silence held was different. This silence was not the silence of war. It was the silence that exists when love overpowers the need for words. The pretend hate evaporated and the true love was unearthed. Simultaneously, the two embraced.
