Car Sick

I am in the back of my mom’s car and I’m so short that I can see my feet without looking for them. My dad is driving, and I feel my breakfast arguing with my tummy. We are heading south to my Auntie’s house in Kelso, WA. The road down, highway 101, is twisty and turny, and my hair starts to stick to my hot face. My mom is telling my dad to slow down because I’m turning green, and, “you remember what happened on 101 the last time.” I look at my reflection in the window, and I am red, not green, what is mom talking about? But the trees whoosh by in green and brown so fast that I look back over at my feet, leaving behind the small bit of fog my hot breath had made on the window. My tennis shoes with Velcro, my socks, my stretch pants with flowers, my fingers, my long, fuzzy hair, resting all around me, my pink wind-breaker... I try to think about these things and not my tummy. The car slows down, but continues to rumble. I sway back and forth with the ride, and I must be falling asleep.

            Bits and pieces of this memory stick in my head just the way the hair stuck to my face. Each time I begin to get motion sickness, the sultry feeling in my mouth, my clammy face, my breakfast trying to convince my stomach that their relationship is worth a second chance… these things all rush back to me. I remember that I fogged the window because my hair had stuck to that, too, briefly. I learned that day how my dad drives so fast, but he will slow down for his baby girl. I fight for the front whenever I know the road would be twisty. Either that, or I’m the one driving.

(This was written for my nonfiction class. What do you think? Click a check box below!)