Project Petrolhead

You reach down to knock the fan up one speed. It’s late. You should be asleep by now but the heat of the night is stifling, so you’re out for a drive in the hopes that your air-con can perhaps pass a cool hand across your fevered brow. Reflections of streetlamps pass across the windscreen, and the radio quietly croons an ephemeral pop song, probably about love or partying, but you’re not really listening. This isn’t driving with a purpose, you have no destination, you’re simply experiencing the time-honoured pleasure of driving for the sake of it. Just as you begin to relax back into your seat, something catches your eye. Something harsh and bright against the soft interior lighting. Something that sends a chill down your spine.

The fuel warning light is on.

You try desperately not to panic. You’ve heard the stories on the news, and you aren’t blind to what’s happening out in the wider world, but surely the rumours couldn’t be true, could they? Well, tonight is the night you find out. Almost on cue, the effigy appears on the horizon. Blazing across the night sky in yellow and red, and with clinical white lighting like daylight against the night sky. You pull in and sidle up to one of the many pumps. Then you realise you’ve parked on the wrong side, so you drive out, turn around and pull in again. Tentatively, you open the door and step out onto the dull concrete, popping the filler cap open, and turning to pick up the nozzle. You have no choice but to look at the pump’s LCD readout, for it predicts your doom.

189p per litre!

You clasp a hand across your mouth to muffle a scream. 189? That can’t be right! It was 130 just a couple of weeks ago! But the world has moved on since those innocent days. As the pump flares into life, you feel an odd sensation, almost as if the petrol leaving the nozzle is equal to the amount of your soul that being drained from your body. One click, no more. You aren’t made of money, after all. You look at the final tally and wince, before you pad your way toward the kiosk, ready to receive the killing blow. You open the door slowly, trying to slip inside as quietly as possible. Maybe there’s nobody here. Maybe nobody noticed you pull up and you can leave with your wallet and dignity intact. But, as you round the corner, there he is. Framed like a painting between share bags of Cadbury’s Buttons and a small rack of ice scrapers that are still on sale in April for some reason. Could he be Satan himself? You’re not quite sure, but he’s certainly wearing red. You approach him cautiously, but your eyes are locked together. As you near, his face draws up into a painful, rictus grin, never once breaking eye contact. Now inches from the counter, he finally speaks;

“That’s £82.18 please.”

Each word feels like a stake through your heart. Like the innocence of a childhood has been brutally stripped from you. You do well not to keel over there and then, but then again, you don’t want to give him the satisfaction. You have no choice but to reach into your pocket and pull out a debit card, laying it across the chip & PIN sacrificial altar and waiting for the contactless beep. Not content to let you suffer in silence; he pauses the transaction so he can interrogate you.

“Do you have a Shell Go Plus Rewards card?”

You shake your head weakly, and the card machine finally beeps. The receipt has barely printed before you’re sprinting for the door. Out on the forecourt, you pause for a moment to let the adrenaline pass through your system. You look up to see that he’s still staring at you from the other side of the kiosk window, so you hot foot it back to the car. You speed off into the night at a steady 56mph, taunted by the knowledge that squeezing a few extra miles from your tank could have prevented this, but deep down you realise something.

The petrol station attendant always gets his due…