4338.208 · July 27, 2018 AD
The Truck That Won't Start
Joel knows how to run a pre-trip inspection. Check the tyres. Check the brakes. Check the lights. He's done it a thousand times without thinking. Now he's doing it on himself—and every system is failing. Arms that won't lift. Legs that won't hold. A throat that turns words into broken glass. He used to be capable. Competent. The man of the house. Now he can't even open a water bottle.
There's a particular humiliation in being defeated by a plastic cap.
Joel has loaded trucks, carried shopping up three flights of stairs, held his household together since before he understood what that meant. His body was never exceptional, but it was his—reliable, functional, capable of doing what needed to be done.
Now it belongs to someone else. Something else. And it barely works at all.
Dawn finds him lying on a mattress in a tent, pressing his palm against his chest just to feel his heart beat. Proof of life. Proof that whatever brought him back actually finished the job. But when he tries to sit up, his muscles scream. When he reaches for a water bottle, pain explodes through his hand for reasons he doesn't understand.
Failed inspection. Vehicle not roadworthy.
The courier who delivered parcels across Hobart can't deliver himself from horizontal to vertical. The nineteen-year-old who took care of his mother now needs his father to hold a bottle to his lips.
Joel has never been helpless before. He's learning what it costs.
