Fieldtrip

Written by: Transmetal

For a day early in the month of April it was warm. For a day early in the month of April in Canada, it was roasting. The sun beat down upon all who retreated from the shade of trees and buildings with no remorse. Residents of the local bayside area could have sworn that the lake level had dropped 5 feet from the almost instantaneous evaporation that took place when the sun had first rose. Trees that should have still had snow on them suddenly were budding. Where the trees got their water from was anybody's guess. Children had all gone to school that day, and much to their disappointment the air conditioning was still on order... for the third year in a row. Those who had been taking a field trip were in no better a situation either.

Jumping from the window of a moving bus isn't an everyday activity for me, nor is it one I enjoy. So it was with great regret that I launched myself into the air, while traveling at a velocity of 60 miles per hour on the local interstate. While in the air, I took notice of two peculiar details. The first was just how high up the bus windows was. The second was, among other things, that I had just jumped into the opposite lane.

With only several seconds left until I come into contact with the exceedingly hot pavement, I considered several possible endings to this escapade. None of them were very appealing, and my idealistic notions of Hollywood movie stunts came crashing to the ground. As it so happened, however, the unexpected occurred. To my left, and from behind the bus, a yellow cab approached at an almost indescribable velocity. Fate had intervened, and caused me to land on the hood of this vehicle.

One would expect a body traveling at 60 mph to simply roll off a cab traveling at... Whatever speed this thing was traveling at. Nature appeared to not have renewed its license with the laws of physics, which will more or less allow the author to do all sorts of wacky things throughout this narrative.

It was with great satisfaction that I received confounded stares from student and teacher alike. I waved with a large smile as my new vehicle passed the poorly maintained hulk of a school bus. I'd be in Los Angeles before they reached the next exit, or so I thought.

As soon as the cab had passed the bus, smoke began to pour out of the engine. It's front hood started to bulge and make popcorn-popping sounds. My face red with embarrassment, I casually jumped back into my bus seat and nonchalantly re-joined the conversation.

"So, what happens if white males get offended by Frosted Mini-Wheat, huh?"

On second thought, perhaps I should have stayed on the doomed cab. Oh well, too late for second thoughts.

"What're you guys talking about?" I ask. The tall, fat, grease ball of a speaker turns to me.

"We are talking about politically correct cereal." The second guy proceeds to jump in.

"No taste, no texture, no color, no offense!"

It suddenly occurred to me why I had jumped out of the bus in the first place. Then, in a flashback scene that has been clichéd into oblivion, everything was explained. This explanation, as exciting as a line of verbs and nouns could be, was the antithesis of interesting. If you have been paying any attention, you probably can figure it out for yourself.

Regardless of boring explanations, I decided to take advantage of the bus occupant's stupidity. They had seen me pass by the bus on a yellow cab, and like a goldfish, forgotten the whole event in less than 4 seconds. I could climb out again and slip into anonymousness.

Elsewhere, a lone woman sits. Her character serves little more purpose than to extend the absurdity of this narrative. She looks like one of the cowgirls of a classic western. Her eyes shined like radioactive Twinkies. She tips her hat down, so as to shade them from the glaring sun. Sitting on top of a rock formation, high above the local interstate, she watches the traffic flow by. From such a good point of view, she had successfully spat on every car that had driven by. Her name was... Bob.

Suddenly, Bob's eyes were caught by a pillar of smoke. Such things were typical of a day such as this. Morons would be out in full force, attempting to hike, camp, or whatever other activity caught their eye. Eventually, all of them decided to play with fire.

"Well," she thought "so goes Darwin's theory." She continues to mutter incoherently for several more minutes about Neils Bor and several other famous scientists. However, there was something particularly odd about this smoke pillar. After several minutes, she came to realization that it was moving towards her.

With her curiosity about as active as a kitten exposed to catnip, she proceeded to whip out a pair binoculars. Being a klutz, Bob proceeded to yank out the binoculars with a quick snap of the wrist while forgetting to hold onto the strap. The whole $500 object flew through the air and landed on the ground in slow motion, as seen in "The Matrix". The glass eyepiece shattered and spread out across the road. At this point in time, the smoke pillar had come close enough for the woman to see its source.

To her utter amazement, it came from a car traveling down a hill. There was no driver in sight (He/She must have jumped out, Bob thought) and it was speeding at an almost indescribable velocity. Within seconds, the car had traveled from barely within her view, to within a few meters. Within an equally small amount of time, the car tires popped on top of the shattered glass. It began spinning out of control, until slamming into the very same rock outcropping that she was sitting on.

The large object had already been on fire, but it suddenly exploded into a giant fireball. Anything close enough to spit on it was vaporized. The explosion's power was incredible; it even created a vacuum near the bottom which in turn created a huge mushroom cloud. The wanna-be cowgirl watched this whole event from the relative safety of the bushes she had decided to dive into. Had this been a simply dive and land, it wouldn't have been a problem. Had she simply ran over to the bushes, it wouldn't have been a problem. What HAD happened was she found it necessary to jump off the opposite face of the rock and land on the bushes which were located a good 10 meters down. Oh yeah, that and she realized that the exploded car had belonged to her.

Jumping from the top of a moving bus isn't an everyday activity for me, nor is it one I enjoy. So it was with great regret that I launched myself into the air, while traveling at a velocity of 60 miles per hour on the local interstate. While in the air, I took notice of two peculiar details. The first was just how high up the bus roof was. The second was, among other things, that the bus had stopped moving and I was the only thing traveling 60 miles per hour.

Before my inevitable and admittedly painful landing, I began to wonder why designers felt the need to place sky lights on the bus roof. They should know that teenagers such as me would feel the need to jump out of such an opening. I looked down; noticing that the ground was still about a meter away I continued my strange and useless thought process. Why hadn't they made vanilla flavored Koolaid?

Then, it suddenly hit me. Not the answer to the question you idiot. I'm talking about the ground. However, fate intervened, and decided that I should land in some bushes a few meters off. The bushes were nice and comfortable, and the landing was rather pleasant too. Except for a bruised hip, I could happily hobble along for the rest of my life. I lay there for a few minutes, contemplating how the author could possibly end this story. Decidedly, the narrative had traveled absolutely nowhere in 4 pages, and was most likely to wrap up with some cliché moral of the day ending. With the hope that the story would I end soon, I got up and walked over to a large crater near by.

It seemed appropriate that it would end in a strange set piece like this, all that was needed was somebody to bounce my speech off of. Oh hey, there's a strange looking cowgirl on the other side. I'll go talk to her.

"Good morning ma'am."

"Afternoon ass wipe."

"Well, are we gonna end this story or what?"

"Fine... So, what did we learn today?"

"I learned never to jump out of busses, regardless of how stupid its occupants are."

"I learned never to give my car keys to random hobos on the streets."

Bob suddenly appears rather uncomfortable.

"Ummm... Are we forgetting something? Shouldn't there be some epic conclusion?"

"No."

"Oh, right."

The two hold hands as the sun randomly sets.