happy Good Friday to all. I am off today so I wrote this Thursday afternoon. It felt very strange to do one of these prompts in the afternoon though. I really have gotten into the habit of writing them first thing. After writing it I reached for my coffee and then reminded myself it wasn’t morning any more. Very strange. I sis enjoy the prompt though, even if i did find the timing strange.
Friday, April 15th: He stared at the half destroyed windmill.
He stared at the half destroyed windmill. There were four wooden paddles, or blades he supposed they were called. They caught the wind and spun the wheel around. Instead of a water wheel Stan had hooked them up to a rechargeable battery.
He hid all of the mechanical bits inside the windmill so that it looked like a normal backyard decoration. At least he thought it looked like a normal back yard decoration for his neighborhood. His neighbor to the left had more than a hundred gnomes decorating her yard. They peered out or the trees that separated their properties from the often flooding creek in the middle of the lower areas behind their houses. They peeped out of bird houses and around faux logs.
Stan used to sit on his back porch and drink his morning coffee clad only in his bathrobe and boxers. Despite none of the neighbors noticing, the gnomes made him feel watched and he started dressing before coffee.
The other side tended towards round glass balls. They were half buried in the garden, set into clusters near the bases of trees and lifted up on pedestals. There was even one floating in the bird bath. Stan was pretty certain it is why no birds ever chose that bath for their morning ablutions.
‘well that and the bleach,’ he amended. Even now he could smell it on the breeze. Mrs. Roberts poured enough bleach in it to turn the inside of the bird bath a brighter white than the outside and to turn the blue glass ball floating in it yellowish green on the spots that stayed beneath the water.
The light breeze stirred the broken bits of his windmill. He hadn’t thought anyone would notice given his neighbors. Yet on a weekly basis he was asked if he was planning to set up a mini-golf course in his yard.
Of the for blades one was missing completely and one of them was half smashed. While the yard often boasted crossings of deer and all night rabbit parties, he doubted either of them had done the damage. ‘It looks like a baseball bat.’
He sighed and began a temporary repair on the broken segment of the wind mill. He would have to build a replacement for the missing one and he would fully repair the broken one then, but for now duct taping it into place so it couldn’t cause more damage was his best option. He set to work and soon it was in place, with bands of silvery tape binding the bits together.
This wasn’t the first time the windmill had been damaged although this was worse than usual. He had installed cameras to watch and find out who the perpetrators were. He suspected it was one of the local teenagers blowing off steam. He had no real plans to report them this time, but figured with the video he could at least confront them and get the damage to stop. Stan went back into the house and pulled the footage up onto his computer. Worried he might not get a clear view, he had placed several cameras with different angles. He cued them up hoping he had sufficient footage to go and speak with whoever was attacking his windmill. Stan blinked in surprise as he played them back.
“Mrs. Roberts?”
Ten til Midnight 