The other morning, as I was having my traditional breakfast of chocolate cake served on a bed of squid-ink fettuccine, a thought occurred to me. This is not unusual, of course, thoughts occur to me all the time. At this very moment, for example, a part of my brain is screaming at me, “Why are you doing this? Go do something else––be productive with your life!” See? Thoughts. But this particular thought the other morning was something deeper, draped in a rich sauce I could only describe as velvety. It was this: “What the hell are hybrid cars?”
Seems silly, yes? Such an oddly specific thought about an oddly specific subject. Not the sort of thing that one would simply wonder while savoring a mouthful of briny deliciousness, and yet here we are. It most-certainly was the thought I had, which I’m now exploring, and is not at all the result of being told what to write. Who would do such a thing? Tell a writer what to write…
No, no. This was a true and natural thought that occurred to me in the midst of my brisky morning munching. So there was nothing to be done for it––I needed to dig deep into this subject, to flay open its gelatinous innards and expose the jiggling abomination that lurks deep in the rancid heart of the auto industry. The truth about hybrid cars!
What You Think They Are
Let me guess; you’re sitting there in the rich luxury of your lavishly appointed urban villa, reading this as you sip at a cup of chai, thinking you know all there is to know about the auto industry. Oh, you’ve heard of hybrid cars, you’ve read all about them before… You probably even watched a video about them. Maybe you saw a documentary about the energy crisis and the importance of electric and hybrid cars––feeling charged with positive vibes as you realize your intentions and actualize the future you dream-of into reality.
Good for you, but you’re wrong.
Hybrid cars are not some sort of bizarre amalgamation of internal combustion and electrical energy working together in unison. That’s just ridiculous. A conventional engine runs on a series of fiery explosions to produce massive amounts of energy that powers your car. On the other hand, an electrical battery uses charges to produce energy that powers all sorts of things. Electricity is like lightning, and combustion is like the sun––you can’t have the sun shooting out bolts of lightning. That just doesn’t make sense!
Also, I’ve already developed a screenplay for a disaster movie about the sun blasting out bolts of lightning, so no, you can’t use that idea. It’s called “Sunny Mourning” and I’m currently in talks with Steven Spielberg’s people, thank you very much.
What They Really Are
In reality, hybrid engines are just that: genetic hybrids. I’m sure you’ve read stories about fish DNA being injected into bananas to create super bananas that can breathe on land or in the sea. Well, that’s only the beginning of what the gene-splicing lunatics in the tech industry are working on. Fish bananas will be the start of the hybrid revolution, but they won’t be the end of it, oh no.
Hybrid engines come in a wide range of shapes and sizes, but the typical one you’ll find in a sedan or coupe is essentially a large tomato that has been combined with the genetic code of a gorilla. That’s right, gorilla-tomato power! Now you see why they hide this from you? They know, as I do, that you can hardly handle the thought of a gorilla-tomato powering your vehicle, the gentle idling of your luxurious sedan mimicking the heavy breathing of the maddened fruit-ape under the hood.
What They Also Are
Oh, but that’s not all. Gorilla-tomato engines were merely the first step; after all, you have to start somewhere, so why not gorillas and tomatoes? But things have gone so much further. I mean, could you imagine a gorilla-tomato hybrid powering a large SUV or heavy-duty full-size pickup truck? Of course not, that’s absurd. You’d need several such engines to power a larger vehicle, perhaps as many as a dozen gorilla-tomatoes would need to be strapped to the underside of your truck for it to work––impractical at best and delusional at worst.
No, for the big stuff with serious power, the auto industry has had to push further than ever before. I’ve seen at least one vehicle powered by an engine that I would best describe as a squid-hippopotamus-zucchini hybrid. This massive powerhouse was rotund and slimy in a way that had me feeling generally uncomfortable and asking questions about the nature of the universe. But it was the many tentacles extruding from it, writhing about in what could only be sensual bliss, that truly left me shaken and hungry for Italian food or Japanese cartoons.
And yet, we’re still nowhere near the endgame for the car manufacturers. I’ve seen prototypes for an engine based on the hybridization of a walrus, pineapple, and lobster. The sketches I glimpsed nearly brought me to tears with the unimaginable potential of whisker, tusk, and claw. Rumors have begun trickling in of something being developed for the military. While I have not seen any official images or documentation of this new hybrid engine, I have heard the following words: “Komodo dragon,” “whale shark,” and “asparagus!”
What You Really Are
An astute reader, which I’m sure you are, has probably noticed something by now, a pattern in all of these hybrids. Animals are there, of course, and fruits or vegetables, naturally, but something is missing. Not a single one of these engines has any human genetic code in it.
Of course not, that would be grotesque. How could you ever have a hybrid engine using human DNA? Inevitably, the engine would follow basic human biology and become sentient, self-aware in a way that no other engine ever had before. You’d have to trick this self-aware creature into remaining docile, remaining part of a system where it does nothing but provide seemingly endless power to a vehicle it can never imagine.
You’d need to convince this monstrosity to act, perpetually, against its own well-being for an imagined “common good.” Some kind of reality would need to be created for this engine, to keep it functioning and in-line with every other part of the system. You’d need to house it in a world in which it can never tell that it is simply a single cog in an unimaginable machine; where you could keep it distracted with abstract concepts like religion and politics, keep it hungry with needs for sustenance, and entertained with an endless stream of movies, TV shows, and web articles about hybrid engines.
Can you imagine such a nightmarish reality?
What you Think i Think you Think we Are
Of course, you can’t––don’t be silly. You just keep doing what you’re doing, which must be the right thing; otherwise, you wouldn’t be doing it. Don’t take any time to wonder why you’re doing it or what the end-goal should be. Just sit back, relax, and enjoy the ride.
Editor’s Note: We would like to assure you that hybrid engines are, in fact, simply a combination of internal combustion and electrical power supplies. The notion that a vehicle could be powered by a rabbit-patty pan-moose hybrid is patently absurd. What? The writer never mentioned rabbit-patty pan-moose engines? Oh––that’s fine then, carry on with your day and just forget about all that silliness. Thank you.
