Environmental Engineering Reference
In-Depth Information
Bill took off his jacket and chucked it on the back
seat of the car. Then he swung himself into the front.
He rammed the key into the ignition, turned it, and
the car thrummed and pulsed into life. The CD
chirruped - then some John Cage came on. Bill
scraped the big saloon around a hundred and eighty
degrees, and shot back up on to the A9, this time
heading south.
For the next hour he drove hard [. . .]. It was
exhilarating - this headlong plunge down the exposed
cranium of Britain. After twenty miles or so Bill had
a spectacular view clear of the Moray Firth to the
Grampians. The mountains pushed apart land, sea and
sky with nonchalant grandeur; their peaks stark white,
their flanks hazed white and blue and azure. Not that
he looked at them, he looked at the driving, snatching
shards of scenery in the jagged saccades his eyes made
from speedometer to road, to rearview mirror, to wing
mirrors, and back, over and over.
[. . .] In a way Bill was praying. In the concentration
on braking and accelerating, and at these speeds
essentially toying with life and death - others' as well
as his own - he finally achieved the dharmic state he
had been seeking all morning: an absorption of his
own being into the very act of driving.
(Will Self,
Tough, Tough Toys for Tough,
Tough Boys
, 1999, pp. 120-121)
