This morning I was women up by a crunching thump as my mother’s neighbor backed over his own mailbox. Not the ideal wake up call, especially for him,. but it did get me going. So let’s jump into the writing prompt.
Not entirely sure where this is going and honestly, kind of more interested in my mother’s neighbor right now. He is trying to unflatten his plastic mailbox. It is a bit of a production I can’t lie.
Tuesday, July 25th: He smiled and tilted his face to the sun.
He smiled and tilted his face towards the sun. How long had it been since he walked in the sun? He didn’t know. That thought stopped him for a moment. He stood still, eyes closed, face lifted. He let his memory drift back. The sunlight danced on his eyes through his lids and turned the world into a golden place. He knew he hadn’t stood in the sun since he started transport duty.
His ship left planetary space before the sun rose and by the time daylight filtered into the world he was quite a few parsecs into deep space and surrounded by the dark of space. Even if there was light outside he would never know. He was in a small control booth, his eyes fixed to an electronic screen. His lights were green ang red. Green was good, red was something to be avoided.
He spent six years on the Derian run and Derian was not a planet where humans wanted to get out and stretch their legs. A single lungful of the air would kill them and even if they found a way to breathe the toxic chemicals would eat through their suits and skin in less than ten minute’s flat.
He navigated into a protected shuttle space, and he and the ship stayed safe inside while the locals removed things from the cargo hold. When done he was signaled electronically. He then piloted himself back to the station. It was a station in orbit around Earth. He, and every other pilot was required to rest there before attempting reentry. It cut down on accidents.
It also meant that when he did reenter the earth’s atmosphere it was only to refuel and reload before shipping out again.
“So six years at least,” he decided. He blinked and tilted his head down. The after images left by the sun fading. He gazed out over the ocean. It too was something he missed. He grew up by the ocean and remembered hating how the sand was always everywhere in his house. He smiled.
‘Nostalgia, who knew,’ he thought. He knew that if he dug deep enough into his memory he would find it had been longer than six years since the sun. In one way or another he had been running some form of transport since he turned eighteen and qualified for his license. It seemed the best way to get out of a bad place.
‘Well to escape bad people,’ he thought. ‘The place itself was fine. Even with the sand.’
Some people thought he was running from himself. The truth was he was always comfortable with himself. He just hated being pulled into the constant quarrels, the constant arguing the others had. It was them he was trying to escape, and in the end, he did. They were all gone now. The last one had their ashes dumped into the sea this morning. It was what brought him to the shore and at the moment, he was not yet ready to leave it.
Ten til Midnight 