Metal Deep: Infinite - Damsels in Distress: Episode 1 Read Free Page B

had it. My entire life has suffered because of your delusions. I used to think your stories were some latent creative desire to entertain that never quite made it to fruition, or maybe even a coping mechanism to help you deal with what happened to Mom. Whatever, however, you have officially gone too far. I’m not dealing with this anymore. I’m moving out as soon as possible. I will be better off without you and your delusions. I finally understand why Mom left. I won’t stay here to become like you… a poor, crazy, nobody who couldn’t keep his wife, and who has now lost his son. I’m going to create a new, successful, and grounded life. I won’t be the failure you’ve become. Never.”

    A child should never say things like that to their parent. At least not to a parent as good as my Dad was to me. You can’t take back words as much as you might like to do. No matter how many stars you wish on, how many magic lamps you rub, or how many crosses you kneel before, once something is said, it’s there forever. It’s written on invisible stone that cannot be erased. A man’s account is held to what he says as true. You can apologize, but it doesn’t undo the damage. Nothing can.
     
    I would have gone to the crossroads and sold my soul for any kind of deal that could have undone the hurt in Dad’s face as I berated him. I could only stay for a moment as tears welled in his eyes. He said nothing. He didn’t have to. It was as if the sky had opened and a mantle of failure was rest upon his shoulders. With but a few words I had crushed my father’s spirit, something decades at a measly thankless job, living in substandard housing, and losing the love of his life had never done.

    I don’t know about Puries, Amalgams, and Slates, but as I caught a glance of my face in the mirror by the front door, as I left the apartment with my weeping father crumpled at the kitchen table, my reflection proved there was such a thing as monsters, and I had just seen my first one. Perhaps Dad wasn’t as crazy as I thought.

     

VIPERS
    The trip across town to the fairgrounds was as they say, “The best of times, and the worst of times.” My car was not simply running on fossil fuel alone, but on an unending supply of rage and guilt. So while I pulled off some amazing combat driving maneuvers that would have made any Sunday race day highlight reel, I managed to piss off half the town, and I was hailed into the fairground parking field by a chorus of angry horns, followed by flocks of flipped middle fingers. I didn’t care. I was a man on a mission. I should have turned around and slunk back home after crawling on my belly across miles of broken glass for what I had said to my father, but the angrier, and more prevailing part of me, decided that not only was I going to check out this supposed Amalgam-creating-mob-conglomerate-fronting-expo, but I was going to get in behind the scenes and prove to Dad once and for all that he truly and deeply needed help.

    The expo was amazing. A racing team called the Street Vipers performed the sickest demonstrations of car handling. You name it and they did it. They drifted in formation through hairpin turns, they jumped through fiery rings, one guy, even did a crash demonstration where he ran his car into a brick wall at over a hundred miles-an-hour. He was flung through the shattering windshield and was hurled across the track and over a fiery moat. He landed safely into a large pile of hay bales to applauding cheers of “Oh’s” and “Ah’s.”

    I lost track of the time and the number of popcorn buckets I went through as I sat mesmerized by the thumping techno music and never ending pyros that burned so hot, even where I was up in the nose-bleeds, I could feel the heat from the rolling balls of flame before they disappeared up into the night. A couple of times during the show they would take a break for a buttery voiced announcer to come in and advertise some new car part the team was