Narrative

Penny lost her driving privileges just as soon as she obtained them from a slight mistake she had made. Now she was suffering the consequences in a hellish manner while the sun was setting over golden fields and rolling hills of the south. At the mercy of her father, he drove them both back home while berating her for the mistake she had made. Who knew one could get so worked up over one mistake?  Mistakes are the ones you learned from after all and not everyone is perfect when trying out something new for the very first time.

"Now ah said, Penny, that yew can't be so dang reckless when driving. You oughta know that by now with Lindsey's accident. …"

The sounds coming from her father's mouth felt like grating on her ears, heavy southern accent and all. Feebly, all Penny could do was respond with the appropriatly placed, "Yes, Pa."

She began to assess through all this lecturing that her father was really just fearful of her safety and not unreasonably critical, especially after her sister's recent car accident. Lindsey survived the crash, but not without consequence; she requires physical therapy to resume her normal state of life and mobility. Though the accident was serious, this was the same old thing her father would ramble on about. Penny wished her family could move past this event instead of nauseatingly reiterate it at every applicable moment.

Penny caught a few more remarks her father made as her mind receded away like the ocean pulling back from the shore. Something was said about this or that being punishable and she would get pulled over with behavior like that "one of these dang-nabbed days" and so on. As her father's ramblings persisted, Penny grew alienated from the car and conversation as her attention moved to the scenery outside. Daylight grew into twilight, stars began to sprinkle gently over the sky that would grow stronger as the sun slipped farther away.

Now successfully escaped into a land of daydreams, Penny became a refugee from the speech her father was giving without yield. At this very moment, she would much rather be outside, out in a field or tree in solitude. Penny loved to be surrounded by the quiet environment and the subtle sounds amid it. With nature, there were little stresses presented to life; there was only her and the organic objects around or the occasional little critter. Such things would never lecture or demand anything of her. She felt she could always be at ease when she was outside on her own.

Just as she was imagining the tickling feeling she gets under her palms when brushing her hands over tall grass, the dream broke. The sound that yanked her back into reality was the hissed curse her father was trying to mask underneath his breath. As Penny turned her head towards her father who was now gripping the steering wheel tightly, something caught her eye; she saw flickering lights surrounded by the pressing darkness of the night in the side view mirrors of the car. Her head turned to watch a man leave a black and white car. Red and blue streaks illuminated the silhouette of a uniform that strode to the side of the car, the light catching and reflecting off a badge upon his chest. Hastily, Penny's father rolled down the crank window and with as cheerful of a voice he could find, he greeted with a "Howdy, officer."

Penny could not keep the grin off of her face from the irony of the situation when the man leaned down to the eye level of her father as he asked, "Do you know why I pulled you over, sir?"