Morning all. Are you still there or were you washed away in the deluge in the night? the rains started here around 3pom yesterday and were still going strong when I awoke. It brought thoughts of ark building in with the coffee. As the coffee brewed I wondered how many cubits my yard actually covers. I might add, not for the first time although it usually is a spring wondering as that’s when we usually get our torrential downpours. However while the coffee completes it’s brew cycle, let’s just jump into our morning prompt and maybe think less of an impending apocolypse.
I suspect that hose lights are not benign and that Carl is going to need Mike as an alibi. I don’t know exactly what the lights are, but I think people are about to go missing.
Wednesday, January 4th: Lights danced on the horizon.
Lights danced on the horizon. “Well would you look at that,” Harry said, voice filled with wonder. Carl looked up. Harry was staring at the lights as though mesmerized, the beer forgotten in his hand.
“It’s just lights,” Carl said. He realized the s sounds were starting to sound a little slurry. He frowned to himself and instead of refilling the solo cup with beer, he reached for the water bottle on the counter. After a quick glance around to make sure no one was looking, he filled his cup with water instead of from the keg. He slipped the bottle back on the counter and tapped the spigot of the keg with his hand as though using it before turning around.
He needn’t have bothered, everyone else had joined Harry in studying the lights dancing in the sky.
“Might be fireworks, Jerry volunteered. Carl was thinking more or less the same thing but was glad he kept his thoughts to himself as Jerry was argued down from all sides. Carl drank his water down hoping to wash some of the beer fog away. He almost never drank and in fact had not had a single beer since the last time he hung out with these guys. He adopted a ‘when in Rome’ approach that he was quickly coming to regret. He chugged the last of his water and as everyone was still focused elsewhere, he refilled his cup with water again, powered it back quickly and then filled it once more to the brim.
The water was helping to push the fuzz away. He knew he wouldn’t be driving as he had walked over from his apartment. It was only a block away but it seemed like a greater distance.
“I say we investigate,” Harry said. His voice sound firm, definitive. There was a chorus of agreements and Harry reached for the sliding glass door. He slid it open and the crisp night air slapped Carl in the face doing more to clear the fog than the water had. Everyone started to leave, heading towards the flashing lights.
Carl followed them and realized the last thing he wanted was to treck through a field on one of Harry’s adventures. He dropped to the back of the group and let them get ahead of him. No one looked back as they all speculated on what the lights could be. They were changing color now, blue and purple dominated but there were yellows and reds in there too. Once all of them were past him, Carl stopped moving. He stood still and drained his cup of the last of the water. No one stopped, no one looked back.
Deciding this was his best chance to leave without an argument, Carl turned and threw the now empty cup in the garbage bin. Instead of following the crowd he aimed his steps around the side of the house moving towards the front of it instead of following the lights off into the back field. In moments he was on the street. Carl tucked his hands into his pockets and walked briskly away, cutting down a side street and into an alley to reach his building.
“I don’t know what I was thinking,” he said to himself as he reached his apartment building.
“I do,” a voice said. He looked up to see Mark standing by the door having clearly just arrived home himself.
Ten til Midnight 