The Mystical Wombat's Guide to Life - excerpt 2

McBee screeched to a halt in the middle lane of the busy G46 – the majestic seven-lane thoroughfare snaking out of the city - sending cars spiralling off in all directions to avoid him. He sat, motionless, a white-hot anger searing through his veins, oblivious to the blaring horns and curses of the approaching drivers.
I have been cut up by a woman with furry dice, he repeated, a manic mantra under his breath as blood pumped wildly at his temples. All the many years of feeling undervalued, the relentless daily grind of his existence and the building sense of disappointment in a life that had once promised so much yet never delivered, suddenly descended as one huge, crushing weight on McBee’s weary frame.
Stunned by its claustrophobic severity, he struggled to catch his breath, grasping frantically at the driver’s side door. Finally locating the small silver handle, he pulled at it with all his might – which took considerable strength, as every movement now appeared to require a gargantuan effort to perform. The car door swung open and McBee grabbed his suitcase from the passenger seat, bolting from the stranded car with all the speed he could muster.
Maybe it was the utter idiocy of the situation; maybe it was the result of too many emotions swept under the carpet for too long – we shall never know. Even McBee himself, in later years, couldn’t exactly explain what it was that made this particular offence so different from all the others he’d encountered in his life.
Whatever the reason, the fact is that this event was officially The Last Straw for McBee - and came to be known as such.
As McBee fled across the lanes of skidding, swerving and colliding vehicles - that were fast becoming steaming, screaming dog-piles of metal and skin, blood and bone - all he could focus on through the brooding purple-grey haze bubbling across his vision was the wall at the edge of the carriageway – and the streak of dark silver water, hundreds of feet below the road, stretching out towards the grey horizon.
Unable to think any longer, he moved towards the wall as if propelled by an overpowering, unearthly force. Beset by the pounding of his heart in his ears, combining with the growing sounds of confusion, fear and pain behind him and the taste of burning rubber and flesh catching at the back of his throat, McBee’s mounting, terrifying panic pushed him – quite literally – over the edge.

© Miranda Dickinson 2007

Is this the end for McBee? Find out in the next exciting episode...!