Happy Friday everyone. I hope you are planning a good one with a nice slide into a weekend. Personally I have a rather full one today and I’m hoping to get all of the items crossed off of my to do list before the holiday weekend starts. It will be a stretch, but I think I’m up to the task. So lets get the day rolling with out morning Writing prompt? Are you ready? It looks like a good one.
I think I forgot the we and turned it into a singular trip pretty quickly. I do like the scene though. I don’t have anywhere to use it right now but it has the feel of something that could be useful later with some tweaking of course. Perfection rarely occurs in fifteen minute bursts.
Friday, July 2nd: We started off before the sun had time to kiss the horizon good morning.
We started off before the sun had time to kiss the horizon good morning. The world was still dark and silent. You could feel the moisture hanging in the air and I knew that while it was clear enough to see miles ahead now, as soon as the sun rose, the dew would rise as steam and a low fog would encircle the world, blanketing the newly arising people in streamers of cotton wool as they tried to brush the sleep out of their eyes.
I would be long gone by then and took the clear sight as an invitation. I wound my way out of the neighborhood, moving slowly. I doubted that there were any children out and about at this time, but the slow drive through the neighborhood was habit.
‘Besides there might be an early morning dog walk.’ I thought. The slow pace still had me gliding out of the neighborhood and onto one of the streets feeding into the city’s main arteries in less than five minutes. I looked, saw no traffic in either direction and turned left.
My drive was short a I pulled into the filling station. My car had about half a tank and I meant to top off the tank the night before, but events got away from me. I pulled up to the pump, cut the engine and stabbed a finger at the release button of my seatbelt.
The seatbelt released more forcefully than intended and the metal tab slapped me in the arm in retribution. I rubbed the sting away and opened the car door. As I opened the gas tank, inserted my card into the machine, lifted the nozzle and selected my grade, I tried to push the night before out of my head.
‘After all, it wasn’t that unusual.’ I thought.
The thought was depressing. The little annoyances were growing. Multiplying. Although they seemed more or less the same arguments held repeatedly, the tones were getting harsher and the words more biting with each pass. The problem was, it wasn’t my argument. I was not the one angry. I was not the one sniping. I was only the peacemaker caught between two warring factions. I could calm things down and settle the immediate infraction of the rules, but until they came to an understanding and worked out their differences, I could only referee the matches, not help solve the problem.
The gas pump clicked and the flow of fuel turned off, signaling my tank was full. I Replaced the nozzle in its stand, recapped my gas tank, closing the little flap over the porthole, and pressed the button on the touch pad signaling I wanted a receipt. The receipt was printed, I took it and folded into my front pocket. As no one else was at the pumps waiting for their turn to fuel up, I left my car where it was and went into the convenience store. The tired clerk glanced up, determined I was not a threat and returned to the book he was reading.
I tried to shrug his disregard off. It was good I wasn’t viewed as a threat. I wasn’t trying to be threatening. The problem was that everyone in my world seemed to share the clerk’s opinion. At the moment I found it somewhat depressing.
I moved to the coffee machines and fixed myself a cup in one of the large paper cups, heavily doctoring it with flavored creamer before walking back to the register.
Ten til Midnight 