Good Morning all. I woke up today thinking it was Monday again and was somewhat disappointed. Finding out it was Tuesday made me happy. Not that I actually hate Mondays, but I just didn’t sleep well Sunday night and so this Monday was rough. I slept pretty well last night though. I’m adjusting to the the daylight savings but spring needs to start springing because I don’t do well getting up in the dark. It discombobulates me. But I’m going to get back on track with my morning writing prompt. If anyone else is coming along, let’s go.
This could be interesting to play along with at some point. I had to stop writing just as I was starting to figure out what was going on though. It is something I may want to come back to later.
Tuesday, March 23rd: It was colder than I had imagined.
It was colder than I had imagined. I reached out my hand to touch it but stopped before my fingers connected. The small orb radiated a cold so deep that even an inch away and my fingertips started to grow numb, the bones aching with cold.
“I wouldn’t touch it if I were you,” A male voice said, even as I was pulling my hand back. I turned to look. It was someone in uniform. To be honest I didn’t really know much more than that. There were several different countries who sent several different types of uniforms to the site. Some were military others seemed to be something thing else. I could pick out the military of my own country, but quite frankly couldn’t tell a sergeant from a general.
In my mind generals always had a bunch of metals pinned to them and smoked a pipe. While there were patches of varying sorts and an assortment of pins, no one sported metals or a pipe so my feble attempt at ranking them was null and void. I just identified them as ‘from my country’ and hoped that if trouble came I would fall under their protection.
I hadn’t been worried about protection before I arrived. Confusion was more where my thoughts headed. I’d never even heard of this project before someone showed up in my office and informed me that my presence was requested. At the time I wasn’t told much other than that arrangements had been made. The board was happy for me to go and I suspected there might be several key votes taken while I wasn’t around to complain. I had someone keeping an eye on things, but I knew I’d have a bit of a fight on my hands when I returned.
I remembered voicing a vague protest but somehow being inexorably swept towards an airfield. My bags had even been packed before I left and were already waiting for me on the plane. Everyone wanted me on the site and they wanted me fast.
‘Or they didn’t want me to balk,’ I thought studying the man approaching. He smiled warmly but it didn’t reach his eyes. It was the smile of something who had something he wanted to sell. Still he was the first person sent to talk to me.
After hurrying me here and spending no time explaining during the flight, we landed and I was brought into one of the temporary buildings and told to wait. The scale of the project, whatever it was dwarfed anything I could have imagined. The receptionist who assumed I had whatever clearance was needed to go poking around handed me a cup of coffee and opened the door to me.
‘It’ll be cold,’ she said as she handed me the cup. Feeling the cold radiating from the orb placed atop the pedestal in the center of the room, I set my coffee cup on the floor beside the door and walked over. Now the man in uniform had my cup of coffee in his hands. He saw me glance at it.
“It’s gone cold,” he told me. “They do so quickly in here. We’ll get you another cup.” He inclined his head towards the door. “You’d better warm up too.”
As though his pointing it out made me realize it, I shivered. I realized I was cold and growing colder by the minute.
“Yeah,” he said nodding. “It pulls the very warmth from you.”
“But…” I asked wanting to know what it was.
“Let’s get you warm first, you’ll think better.” He turned and walked back towards the door. I gave the orb one more look and then followed after. I wanted to be worm again, but more than anything I really wanted to know what was going on and why I had been brought here.
Ten til Midnight 