The Full Ridiculous: A Novel - Tapa blanda

Mark Lamprell has worked in film and television for many years. He co-wrote the film Babe: Pig in the City and wrote and directed the award-winning feature My Mother Frank. The Full Ridiculous is his first novel. He lives in Australia.

Halfway through a ten-kilometre run, you have yet another premonition that you&;re hit by a car while jogging so you decide to outwit the fates by changing course, heading down Hastings Road instead of up it. Rather than risk the usual dash across the intersection, you wait at the pedestrian crossing for a sleek green four-wheel-drive to pass on your right. Summer is toppling into Autumn but it&;s still hot and you wipe the sweat from your forehead with the back of your hand. Looking left, you see an old blue sedan approaching and make eye contact with the driver who is lit by a flash of early-morning sun. You stride confidently across the worn white stripes and almost reach the other side of the road when, out of the corner of your left eye, you see something blue.

The blue sedan.

It&;s less than a body length away, and it&;s not stopping.

Time slows, just like in the movies, which is ironic because you work in the movies. Well not in the movies, around the movies; you write about movies, ‘clever&; features poking fun at filmmakers who may not be creative geniuses but

at least they&;ve had a go which is more than you can say for some joggers

which is why you have this self-loathing thing going

which is why you overeat

which makes you overweight

which gives you borderline high blood pressure

which is why you&;re jogging.

Milliseconds pass.

The blue car moves closer.

You recall a conversation with a stuntman during the making of the latest Mad Max movie. He&;s talking about a sequence where he gets run down by one of those reptilian-looking, post-apocalyptic vehicles but you&;re not really listening because you can hear an actor in the wardrobe tent complaining about his costume. He&;s not really complaining; he&;s just fussing about how heavy it is, but in your piece for Cinema Australasia you say he&;s complaining because it adds tension.

This stuntie says the important thing is to go over the car when it hits. You go under, most likely you get stuck on some sticky-outy bit of the engine, dragged along and de-skinned, then kidney-squishingly, eye-poppingly, brain-squeezingly, run over by one or more wheels. You go over, at least you&;ve got a chance if you land right.

You don&;t know how you remember all this in a millisecond but you do. You even remember the stuntie sensing he doesn&;t have your full attention so he gives a demonstration. You remember him lifting himself off the ground, a little jump just before the vehicle hits.

On the crossing, you are not afraid. You feel not one moment of fear. There is no time for metamorphosis so you perform an act of instantaneous transcendence. You are no longer a person. You have become a living thing with a singular objective: to remain what you are: alive.

You start to turn to face the blue car but you can&;t turn far in a millisecond.

You can think a lot but you can&;t do a lot. You do, however, manage to raise yourself off the road a little before the car drives into your left thigh,

still in slow motion.

You feel no pain.

And that&;s all you remember.