The ice cream truck accelerated onto the freeway. Rubber rotated on the surface at an increasing rate. The chime was silent. The engine roared. A fridge hummed. 

Children made dentists wealthy. They didn't have the pain, or the expenses - yet - but that would come with time's incessantly advancing parade, and cavities, best formed in childhood.

The governor stopped the truck's acceleration, and the engine settled into a steady beat. The driver gripped the wheel, and avoided looking into the sunset. They were at speed, and the other vehicles weaved a path.

Headlights began to warn, and rain fell from the sky in lonely summer droplets. 

The truck smelled like Vanilla.

The driver yawned, their memory full of cash register actuators, and cold hands. The heater was off. 

An exit loomed, and the truck veered gently toward an arterial route. Sugar moved, sweet, and fueled biological inevitability. 

The truck didn't feel the driver's pain. It continued through an intersection. The product vibrated. It lurched forwards. Somewhere, a belt snapped. Chain broke.

Metal deformed. For a moment, the engine roared, then it fell to silence, starved of fuel. 

The ice cream had spoiled, splashed about the cabin, covering the inside of the windshield in flavour. 

Before the driver died, he put a hand to the wind shield, then to his lips. 

"Yum", he spoke, a single last word.


https://files.peakd.com/file/peakd-hive/holoz0r/23tbkgmu6SLkmWS48oZuDkMGHDjpYqzRSx599RcCJjKyTwad6MF2ANCSWxTEF3GS8kaKc.png<sup><em>Ai gen image</em></sup>

*Originally written as part of an in-person writer's meet, by hand - presented here, in text. The ending got a good laugh from the others present.*