You clock in to work and gasp. 

There it is.

It’s an S197 Ford Mustang Bullitt, a special version of Ford’s legendary pony car based on an old Steve McQueen movie. It comes packaged with a few performance goodies and an exclusive Dark Highland Green paint job. It’s a pretty flat shade of green, with a little too much yellow and not quite enough blue in the undertones, but when the sun hits it in the right spot, you swear the paint pearls into a thousand different colors. You can’t be sure if it’s the same one, but here it is, parked in the customer lot at the dealership you work at, only a few months after it was sold.

No way. 

Immediately memories of the summer begin to flood into you. The single room apartment you rented last minute as school let out. The sweltering miles you walked in the sun moving cars between the lots at the dealership.

Crying alone on your bed as the sun came out.

Your eyes don’t leave the Bullitt as you walk into the dealership. It’s still got license plates on it, so you can’t be sure if it’s being traded in towards another car, or if the owner’s just here to follow up. And it still could be a wholly different car than the one from the summer, a sister model painted in the same stealthy shade. You aren’t sure.

Honestly, you don’t care. You want it to be the same one, so in your head, it is. As you rifle through the drawer of keys and pull a set to test drive, you scan the number of desks that line the glass walls of the dealership, each one bustling with salesmen and customers, hashing out deals and making small talk. Any one of these patrons could be the owner. 

Any one of them could have the keys to the Bullitt.

You want to find the owner. You want to walk up to them and shake their hand. You want to thank them for their purchase, congratulate them for a fine choice of automobile. You want to ask them how ownership has been; has the Bullitt been treating them well? Has it been fun?

Has it saved them yet?

It takes every muscle in your body to leave the dealership. You’ve got the keys to a different muscle car in your hands, a Dodge Challenger. On the clock, it’s your job to give the car a shakedown, testing to make sure it’s ready to be sold. You aren’t really paying attention to traffic as you pull away from the dealership and onto Route 33, and luckily traffic is light, because your eyes are still glued to the Bullitt as you start your test drive.

The sun is going down behind you as you row through the gears on the Challenger. You put your foot into the gas and the engine roars. The V8 under the hood sounds similar to the Bullitt, but not quite the same.

It’s enough to imagine, though.

You wonder if the Bullitt’s owner appreciates the engine note as much as you do. You wonder if they throw the gear lever into each gate as deliberately as you did. You wonder if they laugh as hard as you did when you were behind the wheel.

You wonder if they cried as hard as you did when the Bullitt made you feel like a kid again, because you hadn’t felt that way in such a long time.

You wonder if they chase that feeling, too. Of being a kid. You wonder if they remember being seven years old, when your brother was still alive, when your parents were together, and when you didn’t know what guilt was like. You don’t remember, but you can fantasize.

You wonder if the owner doesn’t need to fantasize that feeling when they’re in the Bullitt, too.

The Challenger drives smoothly. It’s got more power than the Bullitt, but when you return to the dealership after the test drive, there’s a sour taste in your mouth. You put the keys back in the drawer and pull another set; a Chevrolet Camaro. It’s next on the list of test drives you need to complete before calling it a day.

The Bullitt is still parked outside the dealership. For a moment, you consider walking up to the front desk of the dealership and asking your boss if he knows where the owner is. For a moment, you consider what you would do if the owner told you; you consider telling them everything you are feeling right now.

For a moment, you also consider that if you find the owner, you might not talk. Instead, you might rip the keys to the Bullitt from their hands and make a run for it. If you’re fast enough, you might be able to get in the car before someone can stop you. If you’re fast enough, you might be able to fly out onto 33 and floor it towards the hills. If you’re fast enough, you might be able to drive it into the sunset, hard enough that no one could catch you. 

Then you could drive it East, and when the sun rises over the hills again, it would just be you and the Bullitt. 

Then you could drive it East, and when the sun rises over the hills, you could have that feeling again.

Anemoia.