Good Morning. Have you ever woken up midway through a dream and you really want to get back to it just to figure out what is going on? I woke up out of a dream where a judge was making a clandestine dinner meeting to discuss a cargo ship of missing smoked mackerel. And that is all I know. The judge just informed his assistant that the meeting was key and that the stolen fish needed to be found. The assistant thought is was a bad idea and then the alarm went off. I am going to spend the rest of the day working out the details. So I thought I’d share. Hopefully it won’t influence the writing prompt. Actually I’m hoping the writing prompt will shake off the last of the dream. So shall we see which happens? Timer’s set if you are playing along at home.
Well no fish and no judge, unless that’s who our newly single friend meets at the restaurant. Or this is where he decides to begin a career as a fish thief. But I think it is seperate.
Wednesday, July 6th: It was unexpectedly complex.
It was unexpectedly complex. He thought it would be simple. He and Sarah sat down like adults and realized their relationship simply wasn’t working. Neither of them was happy and neither wanted to stay. Splitting up should have been easy. Yet it was not.
There were the bills of course, half were in his name and half hers. Both of their names were on the lease. They first had to decide who was staying in the apartment and who was leaving. That actually proved surprisingly easy. The apartment was always a bit of a drive for him and shortly before the actual conversation ending things he received notice of a unit for rent within easy walking distance of his office. A quick call and it was secured, his moving date settled.
Once the bills were untangled and the cell phone plans split out of the family plan they were using to individual ones, it looked like smooth sailing. It was only then, when he managed to move his things from the apartment and have all of his bills in his own name that he realized that their friends were even more tangled than their finances had been.
The fact that it had been a mutually decided split with no anger or recriminations wasn’t believed by anyone, no matter how many times either he or Sarah told people. And so they became uncomfortable in group settings where both of them were present. As they each remained single they came to group activities as single entities. The fact that neither brought a date seemed to bother everyone else more than it bothered either of them.
And so they began the complex negotiation of splitting up their friends. This was made more complicated by the fact that ultimately it was the friend who made the decision as to which side they stood on. He was almost relieved when a work event called him out of town. He started with a conference and on his return he discovered a slate of business trips lined up one after the other. They took him out of his regular haunts for three months. There were periodic trips to his new apartment between flights where he did his laundry, slept and then repacked his bags, but he was out of the loop for a good long while. When his travels ended, he found that all of the group shifted Sarah’s way. He couldn’t blame them, but it did leave him feeling as though he was at a crossroads, cut off from all that he knew before. Enhancing this feeling was the fact that his new apartment, so close to his office and convenient for his work life, was out of the area he and his friends habitually moved in. He found himself looking out for a new grocery store and gas station, new restaurants and shopping venues. The people around him changed and he no longer even ran into the others in a casual way. He felt as though he was cast off into an entirely new world even though he had only moved across town. Feeling like a stranger in the once familiar landscape of the city, he walked into The Ivy and Heather Bar and Grill one night. He was thinking only of getting out of his apartment for a bit. He never expected the one visit would change his life.
Ten til Midnight 