The ten-wheeled tractor – Melanie Cheng

Another brilliant piece from a GUNNAS WRITING MASTERCLASS writer.

Once upon a time there was a tractor with ten wheels. Some of the wheels were straight and some of the wheels were wonky. It had been around as long as anyone could remember—big hunka junk in the ramshackle shed along the M52 highway. Bruce Wilder owned it. Drove it everywhere. No road was too pot-holed or too wet or too slippery. He gave kids rides on it. Charged them a dollar. Bloody dangerous, the parents said. Because it was rough as one of those mechanical bull things people rode in America.

Once, Billie, son of William Williams, the village doctor, fell right off it. Suffered a severe concussion and was never quite the same afterwards. Secretly, Mary—the village sweetheart—worried she’d broken her hymen riding it. And every day, Bruce fractured a bone as he drove it. First it was his coccyx. Next it was his pelvis. Once it was his big toe when he got it caught in a gap between the tyre and the chassis. Finally Doctor William Williams forbade Bruce from driving it. Diagnosed him with osteoporosis. Said he should be at home, watching TV, in his dressing gown. But Bruce refused to stop. Even when he broke both arms he begged Tim, the village mechanic, to hoist him into it. Threatened suicide if Tim didn’t. Which was ironic. Because that was Bruce’s last ever tractor ride. Half a mile down the road he fell and smashed his skull into a hundred pieces. But Tim the mechanic never forgot the old man’s last words to him. ‘Mate, remember to always fail while daring greatly.”’ He winked and waved his plastered arm, “The chicks love it.”

 

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Twitter: @mslcheng

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