داستان Sun-Powered Car نوشته ی Robert Burton Robinson + ترجمه فارسی

Sun-Powered Car

by

Robert Burton Robinson

It was just another lousy day in the life of a has-been TV news reporter.

Malcolm was past his prime. And at age 57, he’d long ago given up on his dream of sitting in the anchor chair. But the assignments he’d been getting recently were just downright degrading. It was a three-hour drive back to the city. He was starving. Weren’t there any McDonalds in this crummy little town? He decided to stop at the next restaurant he saw—no matter what it looked like.

Helen’s Hamburgers: the best burgers in town, the sign read. Malcolm suspected that Helen’s might be the only burger joint in town. The fact the there were no cars parked in front made him hesitate. He checked his watch. It was only 11:00 AM—too early for most lunchers. He parked his car and got out. Just as he was about to go inside, he heard something coming down the street. It was too noisy to be a bicycle, yet too quiet to be a car. He turned around.

The brakes squeaked on the 1957 Chevy Bel Air 4-door hardtop as it pulled in behind his car. It was in decent shape for a 50-year-old car. But an odd-looking luggage rack had been bolted to the top of the thing. Malcolm hated to see a great classic car defiled like that. But why was the engine so quiet? Then he realized that the flat thing on top of the car was not a luggage rack—it was a solar panel.