I Feel Qualified to Write About a Luxury Sports Car Despite Never Touching One By Audrey Burges

By Audrey Burges

The Lamborghini felt the sun glancing off its sensuous curves and rolled languidly out of the garage. Its headlights were bright and perfectly symmetrical. They poked delicately through the black leather embracing its generously rounded front end, quivering slightly in the cold morning air. 

The gentle breeze tickled under its hood, making the car purr with delight as cool tendrils wove through its engine parts. They were all there and they were all flawless, the very best examples of the parts all cars should aspire to have. Few ever achieve such perfection, even with the best mechanics and a highly restricted diet of imported fuels.

It must have had a carburetor, because that’s a word that everyone knows in connection with car bodies. And it certainly had some of those cylinder things that move really fast. But the ones on this car moved faster and more gracefully than those of other cars. 

The spark plugs ignited combustion that was both internal and external, lighting a fiery passion in all who beheld it. But they could not behold it for long, because everything about it was swift and nimble. Sleek, too, like a metal otter frolicking in the rain. 

The drifting mist soaked the world, transforming it into a drab and unremarkable background for everything that was remarkable about this car, how tight and wet and sleek it was.

It streaked through the streets with cheerful unconcern on its way to meet its friends—tight and athletic Porsche, and voluptuous Mercedes, and bubbly Maserati. They had a full day scheduled—a Carfriends Day—during which they would spend hours doing whatever it is that cars do to look pretty: getting detailed, or waxed, or polished or whatever.

But really, the Lamborghini looked beautiful without making any effort at all. It didn’t have to work at it or spend hours getting ready the way other cars did. It was always ready to roll.

It could be silly with its friends, and really let its springs uncoil in their company. Maserati teased Lamborghini, and Lamborghini joked back, and soon they were engaged in a playful fight that left them both inexplicably slick and shiny with oil. 

Fully fatigued by their primping and play, they relaxed into a long discussion, as they always did. It was just car talk, really, about the only thing worth discussing: their drivers, and what they looked like, and what would make them happy.

The conversation took some time, because it was complex. And the Lamborghini was apologetic when it was late to meet you for dinner. It wasn’t like some cars, acting like you should feel lucky that it even showed up to let you buy it a drink.

The Lamborghini was flawless in its flaws and balanced in its contradictions: dangerous, but safe. The kind of car to whom you could confess your childhood dreams and know that it would never judge you, because your dreams were more interesting than anything it might have to say. 

It was forbidding, wrapped in metallic elements older than time itself and painted the color of an angry volcano, but it was also welcoming. Ready to enfold you in its supple leather interior.

And it was gorgeous, but also cool. The kind of car you could take out for a beer and a hockey game with the guys. The guys would all be jealous but trying not to let on. And the car, of course, wouldn’t even notice. It’s too accustomed to being admired and coveted. 

And at the end of the day, it doesn’t even see those other guys.

The only thing it sees—really sees, you know—is you.

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Audrey Burges is a writer in Richmond, Virginia, and her work has appeared in McSweeney’s, Into the Void, Gingerbread House Literary Magazine, The Belladonna, Slackjaw, and discarded construction paper on her children’s bedroom floors. You can read more of her words at audreyburges.com and follow her on Twitter, @audrey_burges.

 

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