Good morning all. I hope you are having a good morning. I was startled out of a dream where I was sailing a powder blue teacup down a very muddy river. I think I was actual size but i had somehow gotten stuck in a land of giants. I distinctly remember some fe-fi-fo-ing. I suspect i will have to write the dream as a short story at some point today just to get it out of my head if nothing else. For now let us leave the tea cup aside and set aside the teaspoon oar. It is time for the morning writing prompt. Let’s go.
I kind of like this one. It sort of goes with a character from a series. The Brownie Oxford Series actually. I may have to work this in at some point.
Thursday, October 20th: Think of it as a vacation.
“Think of it as a vacation,” he told me. I nodded and followed him out of the small plane and onto the tarmac. The scents immediately hit me. There was the hot metal and fuel smell of the plane, but as we descended the small staircase to the tarmac other scents drifted towards my nose. The tropical heat, the dense vegetation that surrounded this small air strip and threatened to swallow it; all was vaguely familiar, like a thousand places I had been before, yet none of them specifically. From the scent as we made our way to the waiting vehicle, I knew someone had recently cut the jungle back from the landing strip. The scent of the green was simply to fresh and sharp for it to be otherwise.
Too many memories assaulted me, none of them having anything to do with vacations. I had been here before although there would be no stamps in my passport to show it. The people I traveled with didn’t use customs and avoided checkpoints.
‘Vacation,’ I reminded myself.
We reached the car. It was an SUV, newer in model and I could tell from the weight of the door as I opened it that someone had made certain this vehicle was bullet proof. I glanced over to my host. He was smiling genially. He didn’t know I knew anything about bullet proof cars. Why would I?
I shoved thoughts and memories aside.
“I can practically taste the tropical drinks with little umbrellas in them,” I told him.
He laughed. “I think the umbrellas are reserved for island getaways, but I can look for some if you think it is a requirement.”
I saw the teasing glint in his eye before we both dipped down to slide into the car seat. Bullet proof or not, the car was comfortable. The air-conditioning was pumping out a stream of chilled air within seconds of the engine engaging.
“I could live without the umbrellas,” I told him. “I always suspected if I dried to drink a drink with them in it I would either end up poking my eye out with them or end up shoving it up my nose.”
He laughed. My heavier than normal car door shut with a thud and I reached for my seat belt.
“You are not quite what I expected,” he said.
“Oh?” I asked. “What did Julian tell you to expect?”
“Someone too serious for her own good,” he told me. “I am glad to see we can shake some of that out of you. Although this fear of impalement by drink décor, it does concern me.”
I signed dramatically. “I know. Teams of psychiatrists and bartenders have been working around the clock for years to cure me of this affliction.”
“Well clearly they do not have what I have.”
“And what is that,” I asked.
“Drinks without any adornment,” he told me. His own seatbelt was left to the side as he pressed the accelerator and lurched towards the road, leaving the small dirt patch that passed for the air strips parking lot behind. I tried not to think of the air strip, who built it and how it was regularly used. I knew that if searched I would be found to have nothing more than an asthma inhaler on me. As far as I knew those were not illegal anywhere. Somehow I suspected the armored car was tied to the airport. I tried not to wonder why Julian’s father had no trouble arranging the flight.
The jungle seemed to close in on either side of the road squeezing it as though angered by its presence. Birds and monkeys screamed in the wilds and I named them in my head, reminded myself I was a tourist and had no knowledge of the area. I tried to forget the names I knew so well. I turned to look out of the window at the same time one of the jungle denizens let forth a particularly loud yell. He laughed and began to explain the sounds I was hearing.
Ten til Midnight 