#7890_0008 was a top of the line model when he was created.
Was.
Now he was an old, beaten down truck, like any other.
At only fourteen years old.
He sat, covered in rust, in an old junk yard, decaying and waiting for the end. It was a horrible place to wait, surrounded by the smell of rust, iron, oil, dirt, and noise. At night there would be silence, which is worse than the noise.
#7890_0008 reminisced fondly of the days when he would be of use.
The day his final screw was placed in, #7890_0008 was shipped off to a community center. They bought him, and many of his siblings to help the community.
They would pick up the elderly and bring them in for bingo night, and it was such a wonderful thing to be of use. The senior citizens would get inside some of his siblings, make new friends, plan to meet up again next week. #7890_0008 had a sense of pride seeing how his brothers and sisters helped.
He had his own special job.
Twice a month, the driver, Terrence, a man with large shoulders and long hair, would drive #7890_0008 around the area, giving food to the elderly at various stops, because they were too old to make out on their own. #7890_0008 had great respect for him, because Terrence would wake up early and go to bed late. Every morning Terrence would tell him,
"Well we've got to try our hardest. People are depending on us."
They were!
And so, #7890_0008 did his best!
He too, like Terrence, would wake up early and go to bed late!
Which is fine for a person but not for a truck, especially a truck that is not well maintained. #7890_0008 was never well-maintained because the community center never put the money into it. The trucks were bought using grant money, and then kept running based on prayer alone.
Over the years, #7890_0008 saw less of his siblings. He assumed they went to other places to help other people. This made him feel even warmer inside than his usual sense of pride.
It was the lack of coolant instead.
#7890_0008 had an accident that evening. He was left running in the parking lot of the community center while Terrence went inside to get a bottle of water. When he returned, #7890_0008 fell ill. He would need repairs, he could make it, but it wasn't in the budget. So Terrence, good, old reliable Terrence took one look at #7890_0008 and said,
"Well it figures. You're a piece of trash, anyway."
Trash.
#7890_0008 was heartbroken.
Everyday, for a decade, he and Terrence would wake up early and go to bed late, and this is what he thought of him?
Trash?
Fluid leaked out the bottom of his front compartment, and #7890_0008 had never felt such rejection in his life. Terrence was like a father to him, but instead, he was nothing but trash. All the times that #7890_0008 would make sure to set the radio to his favorite station whenever he turned the car on, all the times he would try to push his window wipers extra hard while it was raining, it all amounted to nothing.
#7890_0008 tried to hold his wiper blades high with dignity because even if Terrence thought he was trash, he knew that the elderly citizens of the community would need him. He wasn't trash! He was a hard working truck! Everyone would protest at calling him trash because he was a truck of high stature.
Terrence made a phone call on his cell phone while leaning on #7890_0008 and grumbling. He took sips from his water bottle under the intense summer heat, and paced around the parking lot until someone came outside. It was Maria, another employee of the community center.
#7890_0008 liked Maria. She always was patient with the elderly. He found it amusing with eveyrone else she had no patience for.
Together, Maria and Terrence put #7890_0008 into neutral, pushed him into garage far into the back of the community center, and left. #7890_0008 AC unit gave a whiz of relief because he knew they had put him in there to be repaired. He had spent many nights in the garage, it was his bedroom and there was nothing to fear!
There was nothing to fear, as the next morning, they towed him away.
The lack of coolant ruined the engine.
The radio that always turned on too early was troublesome.
The window wipers pushed too hard, even when it wasn't raining that bad.
Sometimes the AC would make a strange noise.
Besides, they could get a newer model that was used for a lower price than replacing the engine.
#7890_0008 was left at Charlie's Junkyard and Salvage Lot in the early morning but still held out hope that someone would want him.
He was not a naïve young truck as he used to be, many years ago. He knew that sometimes trucks would have their parts stripped or taken, but he knew that if he was lucky someone would buy him, and once again he could return to doing what he loved most: helping others.
That was what #7890_0008 told himself four years ago, and there he was, sitting, waiting for someone to help him years later.
He sat in the far back corner, forgotten by the owner himself, wedged next to a stack of old, rotting mattresses, at the beginning of a maze of tires of and an old oil barrel. He had long given up home that someone would ever buy him. He wouldn't buy him.
He started to believe that Terrence was right, that he truly was trash, that was what he would always be.
#7890_0008 wanted to cry, but he couldn't, because he was all out of water and coolant.
He had a small reprieve that night, as it was cooler, the sun set, and his metal exterior wouldn't bake and rust away under the sun. That night was different than the others because #7890_0008 heard many noises. He paid it no mind, because sometimes youths would sneak inside and mess in the lot.
One time he saw two dogs chasing each other.
Another night he saw a man drag a dead body inside.
He came several times, with several bodies, and one night he stopped coming all together.
#7890_0008 watched it all, silently happen, an unwilling bystander to someone else's murder spree. He was afraid that he would see another dead body that night. There was shouting in the distance, bright flashlights and unintelligible noises. A helicopter whirred overhead and #7890_0008 knew that this was serious business.
From around the corner of the maze of tires, a young woman appeared, running, naked, covered in blood. #7890_0008 saw her and didn't hesitate. It was another person who needed help, and that was what he did.
Using all the power he had left, his creaky door opened, and the young woman ran inside, shutting the door, and huddling inside. She shivered in the dark, her brown hair cloaking her body and let out a soft oh.
"You're alive?"
#7890_0008 said nothing.
He was shy.
The woman could feel it. #7890_0008 was alive, she could feel his presence, albeit faint inside the truck. She wiggled into the back seat, coughing, filled with dust, and #7890_0008 was again embarrassed, it had been a long time since he had visitors over.
She pressed herself into the bottom, the space between the front and the back seats and whispered to him.
"Don't tell anyone I'm here. They're looking for me."
#7890_0008 wouldn't tell a soul. He had never gotten this much attention from anyone, especially in the past four years. He silently swore to secrecy, upon the life of his last, not rusting bolt.
#7890_0008 was trying his hardest to be brave, and again, held his wipers up, dignified, but it made an erratically loud and disgusting SKRrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrSKKNSrrrrrrsrnnrr noise which just frightened the woman inside and alerted the people following her.
Two men, one short with a flashlight, the other with broad shoulders, both with guns came out. It was dark, but one of the voices was very familiar, the faces indistinguishable. They wore all black clothing, dressed specifically for the purpose of committing a serious crime.
"Where do you think she went," the short man asked.
"I don't know," the other said. "The witch couldn't have gone far. I can smell her disgusting stench."
The perpetrator took a few steps into the moonlight and #7890_0008 could see who it was.
It was Terrence.
If trucks could gasp they would, but they can't, so no audible noise could be heard.
#7890_0008 tightened his front driver seat belt and tried to be brave in the face of danger. It was so difficult, seeing someone that had hurt him. He waited for Terrence to mock him, or shoot his already deflated tires, but that was not the case.
He walked right past him.
Terrence couldn't recognize #7890_0008 in his dilapidated state, and even if he did he wouldn't care.
He was only a truck after all.
He was only a truck, but he was still hurt, and the woman inside could feel his pain. She was marveled that he was alive, curious as to how it happened, but then stopped. If it was alive, then it's pain was as real as her own, and this was such a horrible thing.
"A true blessing would be if you weren't of sound mind to see all this," she mumbled.
#7890_0008 didn't think so. He thought it was a good thing he was there, to help her, to protect her from the evil that was....
Terrence.
Time past, and the woman didn't fall asleep, the adrenaline keeping her awake. The sun rose, and she was still sitting there, whispering to #7890_0008. He did not reply back, but he could feel his intent, his good soul. By the time the sun had risen, high into the sky, the brown-haired woman found it safe to leave.
She left with a few parting words.
"I promise I'll be back."
#7890_0008 did not believe her.
He was happy that he could help someone though, and cherished a new memory, something to break up the monotony of his day.
Hopefully tomorrow would be exciting, but not too exciting.
She left, and #7890_0008 hoped she would be okay, more worried about her own well-being than the fact that he was crumbling to pieces and did not have very long left for the mortal realm.
Tomorrow would be his last day on Earth.