Coming Home - Part 3
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| ready for surgery... |
Many
days passed until, finally, one day I was moved into a big enclosed
space with all kinds of machines and noise and sentients running
around doing one thing or another on many other damaged automobiles.
A couple of the sentients (they were humans) began to look me over,
opened my hood and said: “The engine looks good, not damaged at all.
None of the windows are broken, but the left passenger door and the
left front fender are crumpled and have to be replaced. The front
passenger seat is bent and torn—has to be replaced. Left side
airbags have to be replaced. The rest of the interior is OK. The
chassis is not bent—big plus. The biggest problem is that the left
front drive wheel and brake mechanism are ruined, and the driveshaft
is bent--both will have to be replaced and retooled. OK, that's it.
Let's get this baby ready for surgery!” The last thing I remember
was my battery being disconnected and then nothingness.
There
was the sound of music. I had heard that music before. It was a
Mozart Violin Sonata. It was one of the pieces of music on my USB. I
thought: “I'm conscious again. I've been reconnected and
started--the USB has come back on automatically.” There was a man
in the driver's seat. He was talking to another man outside about me.
He said: “Looks good, she started right up.” (He called me “she”.
Maybe I'm beautiful again!) “Good, take her out for a test on the
highway. Bring her up to 120kph and check for smooth acceleration and
any shaking and pulling in the left front drive wheel,” said the
other man. Off we went.
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| test drive |
We
drove slowly out of the Takanaka Auto parking lot. It was like
learning to move again. I was a little shaky at first, but as we
drove out of the lot and down the street I had the urge to go faster
and sense the wind flowing around me and through my vents. I didn't
notice any changes in my drive wheel, it turned smoothly and steadily
as my speed increased. Out on the highway the driver accelerated
smoothly and steadily up to 120kph and held me there for several
minutes until he was satisfied that everything was running smoothly
and then he drove me back to Takanaka Auto. Mechanically I was like new. I
sensed that my body had been restored to its original condition, but
my brain had to be reset. Takanaka wasn't equipped to work on my
computer, so I was sent to the Mazda dealership in Kushiro for the
reset. Now I was ready to be sent back home 1500 kilometers away. I
felt ready to drive all the way back by myself. I'm pretty smart,
but, unfortunately, I'm not a self-drive automobile.
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| up up and away... |
Takanaka
put me on a piggy back truck and I was given a ride to the port in Kushiro. The
piggy back pulled up to a big boat, but this one was different from
the ferry boat I had driven onto before. It didn't have any openings
to drive through. This one was called a “cargo ship”. Before I
knew what was happening I found myself being hoisted high into the
air. “What a strange new sensation,” I thought. Then I was
lowered onto the deck and tied down with cables attached to the steel
rings under the front and back of my chassis, like the one that towed
me to Takanaka Auto after the collision. So I had my first sea voyage
in the open air. The sun was shining, the sea birds were flying all
around as we pulled away from the pier and sailed out of the harbor.
I felt the ship pitching and rolling gently on the swells. It took
several days with the ship making ports of call, loading and
unloading cargo, until we reached the big port of Osaka. I was
uncabled and again hoisted high into the air and put down on another
piggy back truck and driven to Tamashima port near my home in Okayama.
It was a weekend and I couldn't go home until Monday.
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| oops, overshot the mark.... |
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| c'mon down... |
Finally,
the big day. I'm going home. The piggy back truck driver arrived and
I heard him call someone on his cell. He spoke to someone and said
that he expected to arrive around 10 o'clock that morning and would
“you” be home at that time? That “you” must be my parents who
were waiting for me. I'm not a sentient, of course, but I think I
felt something like “excitement” to be going home and the comfort
of my own garage. As the piggy back drove closer to my home, I began
to recognize places I had been to before, and then we were on “my
street”. I saw Aya coming out of the house and Jude was standing on
the deck above my garage—with a camera as usual. Oh no, the truck
drove right past the house! Aya ran down the street to tell the
driver that he had gone past the house. “No, no,” said the
driver, “I need some space to back your car off the truck.”
And so,
he backed me off the truck and up to the driveway to my garage and I
was back home again. “Wow,” said Aya, “she looks like new!”
“Yeah, she sure does,” said Jude, “let's take her out for a
test spin and see if she runs OK.”
They did, and I DID!
The end
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