Prize - sight, touch, hearing, smell, taste
Brian Theoret - July 7, 2025
The smell of gas fumes and burnt rubber filled my nostrils and my sweaty, damp forehead crunched up into a wrinkled mess as I took the corner at 107 miles per hour. The g-forces pulling on my neck and arms with such force, straining my muscles inside my flame suit. The computer at my fingertips, with its myriad of buttons, levers, and flashing lights went from green to red as I hit full RPMs at the apex of the curve. My mind was blank. I couldn't think. Or I didn't need to think because this was all automatic. My mind was so fast that everything felt like it was moving in slow motion. The taste of sweat on my lip, saline, boiling, humming. The blur of the red blazing lights in front of me blinking, as their battery sips on its charge, building kinetic momentum between the leads. The buzz of 50,000 to my right, the rattle of the curb to my left, I take the next corner at full speed, faster than I ever have before and I taste blood in the corner of my mouth. I must have bitten my lip on that last listing curve, almost rattling my fillings loose. I grip the steering wheel firmly but softly, it's a gentle touch that gets me around the track in one piece. If I grip, I'm bound to slip. I can see the glint and shimmer of the trophy. I can feel it, cold in my hands as I lift it above my head, the dryness of the champagne cooling my super-heated body and the crowd below, holding me up on their shoulders. It wasn't just me in that car. There was someone else. Somebody pushing me along, keeping me moving towards the checkered flag. I can see it again when I close my eyes. Black, white, like a checkerboard. Checkmate.

​A jingle whispers in my ear as I sit on the patio listening to the dull thud of the kick drum in the café down the dusty street. It's Monaco in the summer. I've never been but that's where my mind is taking me right now. I look up at the sun, its rays beating down on me, heavy with intensity and warmth, charring my skin. It's like I'm on a grill grate, slow-roasting from the indirect flame.

Zzzzz. Zzzzz. ZZZZZ!

The black-and-yellow striped devil, with its shiny eyes and murderous face seems to blink at me as it hovers for a second in front of my eyes. I sit, trembling, sweating, not so much from the heat anymore, but from the impending sting. I hope it doesn't happen. I hope it doesn't land on my nose, its spindly legs tickling my nostrils before shoving its red-hot iron poker into my face.

ZZZZZ! Zzzzz. zzzzz.

I stand, legs trembling, aware of the sweat beads lingering on my cheek and forehead. My locked jaw unhinges and loosens. I hear the hum and rattle approaching again. An explosion of sound and wind comes around the corner. The papaya-colored sprinter flies by faster than the blink of an eye, yet the whine lingers for what feels like minutes. Is the buzzing in my mind or coming from my shoulder? I stop breathing for a moment. Chest heavy. Lungs bursting. I slowly turn my head, timidly, inching my view closer to my shoulder's crest. What would normally take a split-second feels like an age.

​The mischievous face blinks at me once again.