TRACTION

Epigraph

"Everyone waits for the white stripe to appear, but they forget the main road paradox: you cannot drive on the markings — they are too slippery. To move forward, we vitally need traction with the black asphalt."

The hum of the engine punched through his chest. It wasn't a sound — it was a vibration that made his teeth ache.

Mark gripped the steering wheel so hard his knuckles turned white. Around him was impenetrable darkness, and only the headlights snatched a patch of wet, rough, black asphalt from the night.

The road was terrible. Potholes, cracks, sharp turns. The car shook, thrown from side to side. Every meter was a battle.

"Slow down!" shouted the Passenger.

Mark squinted sideways. A man in a white coat sat in the passenger seat. Strange, Mark didn't remember when he had gotten into the car. And why did the cabin smell so strongly of rubbing alcohol and ozone?

"I can't slow down!" Mark wheezed, wrenching the steering wheel to avoid flying into the ditch on yet another bend. "I'm shaking! My whole life has been a rough ride! I'm tired of this dirt, of these pits!"

The car was thrown upward. The impact was so strong that his vision went dark.

"This is movement!" the Passenger insisted, shouting over the roar of the engine. "Stick to the black! Do you feel the rubber gripping the bitumen? That is traction! As long as it shakes — you are driving!"

"I want a smooth road!" Mark screamed. "I deserve peace! Where is it? Where is the promised white stripe?"

Ahead, through the rain and darkness, a glow suddenly cut through. It was perfect. To the right of the broken black tract stretched an endless, shining, absolutely smooth white stripe. Not a pebble, not a crack. Pure light.

"Don't you dare!" The Passenger grabbed Mark's sleeve. "Did you hear the paradox? There is no traction on the white! You can't brake there, you can't steer!"

"I don't need to steer!" Mark smiled, feeling relief for the first time in ages. "I just want to glide."

He sharply jerked the steering wheel to the right.

"No! Clear!" the Passenger screamed, but his voice drowned in silence.

The wheels touched the perfect whiteness. The shaking stopped instantly. The pain vanished. The roar of the engine was replaced by a thin, prolonged, endless sound.

Beeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeep...

---

The windshield blurred and dissolved, turning into a white ceiling with bright lamps.

The man in white was no longer sitting on the right — he was towering over Mark. In his hands, he held not a road atlas, but the smoking paddles of a defibrillator, with which he had just unsuccessfully tried to return the patient to the "black, bumpy road" of life.

The doctor looked at the monitor. On the black screen, the green zigzag of the cardiogram — that nervous graph of the struggle for life — was gone.

Instead, an ideally straight, endless, glowing white line stretched across the entire black screen.

"Time of death: 04:12," the doctor said quietly. "He chose the white."