20071227

I Am the Man Who Was Driving the Car

by Bob Jacobs

I am the man who was driving the car that distracted Henri Paul and sent Princess Diana to her death in the Pont de l'Alma underpass in 1997, plunging Britain into mourning. The following day I sprayed my Fiat Uno black, shaved off my beard, and drove down to Portugal where I disposed of the car and rented an isolated villa in the country so that I could come to terms with what I'd done. There I met and fell in love with a plain-looking girl from a nearby village who tended goats on her father's farm, and took her as my wife six months later in a traditional ceremony in a quaint rural church. On our wedding night, drunk on love and having feasted on her body and satisfied my physical desires, I laid my head on her firm young breasts and sobbed as I confessed my part in the tragedy. She told me, in broken English, that I shouldn't feel so bad, that the Fiat Uno is a shit car made in a shit country by filthy peasants, that France is the arsehole of the world, that the British royal family is descended from the inbred rejects of 19th century German aristocracy, that I could use her father's tractor any time I wanted to, and that as long as I promised never to have anal sex with her again she really couldn't give a shit about Princess Diana. Money can't buy a love like that.

6S

Bob Jacobs, whose full catalog is here, lives in the south-east of England with his wife and kids and Sony Vaio. In his spare time he likes to lie motionless on his back, whistling and staring at clouds.