The exhaust cloud dissipated into the night chill, tossed this way and
that by random updrafts, away from the rusted and abused form shell of
a 1982 Ford Fiesta that so recently had come into being, synthesised
apparently by magic from a young man's naked body and several
enchanted components. As the Fiesta clanked into the night,
occasionally backfiring, the cloud continued on an independent
journey.
Five doors down the street, a pristine 11-plate Passat was about to
arrive, its beefy diesel engine just above idle as its owner coasted
into his driveway. As the owner reached for the key, inexplicably
planning to switch off the engine before taking the car out of gear,
by chance the young man's consciousness floated down toward the air
intake. Suddenly there was a great force on him, and he realised he
was being sucked in...
As the collection of gases were compressed and propelled through the
engine, being attacked by a great whirring fan that sliced them
painlessly in two a million times before allowing them to recombine,
the owner finally switched off the engine. The exhaust gases expelled
from the Fiesta had ended up trapped inside the air intake of an
entirely different car.
Suddenly, sensation. Glorious sensory awareness. Sight! Touch!
Thermoception! By god, he was hot! He felt as if the back of his head
were on fire. After panicking momentarily he realised that he was
feeling the residual heat from the engine of the car. 'Damn, I'm a car
again,' he thought, enjoying the feeling of the engine's cooling fan
still rotating gently, returning him to a safe temperature.
Turning his attention to the other things he could feel, he found
himself once again hugging a human male with arms fashioned from nylon
webbing — pliant and forgiving now, where they had once been strong —
and the warmth of the driver's buttocks shoved pleasantly into his
back.
The driver grasped the gearstick firmly and pulled it into neutral.
Sleep descended upon the car's spiritual inhabitant...