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LET ME TELL YOU ABOUT MY SAAB VII

Let me tell you about my Saab.

Max Lavergne

15 Aug 2023 — 6 min read

Let me tell you about my Saab. I was hungover, prevaricating, crawling out of my skin, at the end of my sanity at the end of space, untethered from my muse, emotionally unregulated, cramping, vision monochromising, unwashed for four days and at the point of disaster, excruciatingly self-aware, ambivalent towards that which usually inspired me, deeply unfashionable in the repurposed epoxy leather boiler suit I had pulled off of the mummified cadaver who had died with a desiccated hand caught in a clamped shut air lock door. I was hauling ass along the corridors of an abandoned deep space medical station in a salvaged hovergondola, propelling myself with an aluminium girder, trying to sing along to the primitive 20th century speaker that played "O Sole Mio" on a loop. "Urrrrrrrrrhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh", I sang.

I will describe my mission briefly. I had combed the galaxy in search of a creative north star and found nothing but wonder after boundless wonder, with no sober & considered journal articles to provide context. On myriad planets I had flown morosely over canyons of neon gas, vast savannahs teeming with alien creatures, floating cities that glowed by strange sunsets. All of them were ho-hum. Worse yet, I struggled to form a coherent critique. I returned to my collective at the end of each mission and shrugged as they asked me what truths my experiences had failed to address and what meaning I may extrapolate. “Dunno,” I told them. “But what did you think?” They would ask me. “Hmmm,” I told them.

My inability to interrogate artefacts and experiences had led me to the abandoned deep space medical station to complete a trade for a valuable tool with a dangerous man. I will elaborate no further, but suffice it to say I had used extraordinary and dangerous stratagems to make my way there. Suffice it to say that my situation was critical. If it makes it easier for you to understand I will say that Jean-Michel Langousier, my contact, a collector of rarities and a frightening and unpredictable neurotic, had requested an audience in this place.

It was my pea green 1976 Saab 99 GL, an ancient combustion vehicle of the pre-Accident era, which Jean-Michel Langousier craved greedily. It was a beautiful example of Golden Age upholstery, still with its original booklet, its plastic armrests only mildly discoloured, genuine Saab scuff mats freshly steam-cleaned. “He patrolled the border towns of Neo-Yugoslavia in a very similar vehicle at the turn of the 22nd century,” his attache had explained to me over commlink. “It’s sentimental.”

At his end of the bargain was the miracle contraption that would be my ticket to unassailable taste and intoxicating confidence. It had been crafted by the precise stone claws of a World Crocodile in the lava swamps of Great Hegonid and it could give anything a rating out of five stars and the rating would be accurate. I had seen video of it working and I knew it was real and powerful. Show it a golden treasure. 1 star. The treasure is a fake. Show it a friend. 5 stars. The friend is trustworthy. Show it a delicious dish. 3 stars. The dish is delicious, yes, but also poisoned. What else? Show it a film. 4 stars. The film is enjoyable but does not fully commit to the themes it has itself proposed. Show it an amateur theatre production. 2 stars. The novice cast and director have much to learn but the lead actress has a magnetic quality, a charisma and intelligence that, with dedication to her craft, will in time blossom into greatness. Show it an engine. Show it a map. Show it a flower. Show it a pill, a fresh haircut, a moonlit night, an act of devotion. 4, 2, 5, 4, 3, 4, 1. There was nothing it couldn't rate. No more agonising. An end to ambivalence. As I slid through the corridors of the abandoned deep space medical station, sliding ever closer to my change in fortune, I could practically feel the starlight between my teeth.

At the rendezvous point Langousier was waiting. He was a withered skeleton who was obsessed with painting his face like a mime of Paris from Old Earth. He stood at the bridge of the creaking medical station and pretended to feel the edges of a glass box. He looked at me in disgust as I shambled towards him. "So - do you have it?" He said.

I rasped cold air at him. He stared at me with nearly complete pity. "I will show you what you have come for," he said, and pulled a silk scarf off a black box the size of a suitcase. "Rate our friend's ability to appraise meaning," he snapped, and on its front it displayed one and a half glowing stars. I gasped at the accuracy of the insult. Langousier gloated. “Rate the impact of that appraisal.” It showed 5 stars. I looked at it with reverence. But - you may be thinking - would not anyone in pursuit of such a device doubt their own ability to accurately appraise meaning? And Might not such a person, having had their biases confirmed, be inclined to abandon any further interrogation and put their undiluted faith in the machine? Sure. Maybe. Not my business. “Truly remarkable,” I murmured. The possibilities unfolded before me like a roadmap. Pursue only the ideas with true and objective merit, as determined by a positive 4- to 5-star review. Abandon the dead ends and misfires (1 to 2 stars) at the moment of conception. Leave instinct behind. No more “gut feeling”. Only quantifiable truth.

“And now,” Langousier said. "Rate the quality of the Saab he has brought with him."

The machine paused for a second. A fan inside it whirred. Langousier stared impatiently. Then: it displayed three and a half stars. His eyes narrowed. He stared at me with a cold rage. “The car is defective,” he hissed.

“It isn’t,” I garbled hoarsely.

He pulled a long cooking knife from a leather wallet and pointed it threateningly at me. “Explain why such a magnificent creation would be rated only three and a half stars,” he demanded.

I shrugged helplessly. “Are you sure it deserves more?”

He scoffed. “I patrolled the slums of Ispod-Belgrade and Novi Novi Sad in such a vehicle during the Intifada of 2145. I lit the signal fires with fuel from its tank. Together we raided the Zagreb Separatist teleporters and crushed the embers of the Georgian Uprising. We reversed over the leader of the Georgian partisans as he was aiming his Z-ray Blaster at the Crystal Parliament. Its sound system lent a magnificence to the records of Neil Diamond that remains unequalled throughout the galaxy. I slept in it every night. It was my companion, my shield, my lover... my confidant. And you expect me to believe it deserves only three and a half stars?”

I thought about trying to explain to him that his memory must have become tinted by affection as the years had passed, that the desperate times of his youth had surely, as they do for us all, taken on a swashbuckling romanticism that could not withstand scrutiny, that it was the same escapades that so invigorated the tepid compositions of Neil Diamond, that - above all - the charm of the Saab 99 and, indeed, of its stablemates, one and all, lay not in its perfection but in its imperfections. And there were many. And as these things occurred to me Jean-Michel Langousier advanced on me, scowling, with his knife. And still I realised: actually, some of this stuff is ringing true for me. I was embarrassed by the realisation, which was a simple one - a realisation that sat on an eye-level shelf - and at the immediate implication for myself and my projects, which was to lean more heavily on sentimentality and the fog of nostalgia and eschew cold objectivity. And I was alarmed by the rapidly approaching knife.

“Farewell, Jean-Michel,” I called, slamming a fist on the red self-destruct button on the captain’s console and vaulting the comm. I dashed for the corridor, blasted the door override panel on my way past and slid under seconds before it locked tight forever. I patted the hood of my Saab lightly as I squeezed up the steps to the cockpit of my ship. Klaxons blared as the final countdown to self-destruction ticked away. I disengaged from the medical station’s docking bay and, as I eased past the bridge, caught one final glimpse through the glass of Jean-Michel Langousier before he was lit up like the surface of the sun. He was pulling an invisible rope. That’s how I kept my Saab.