Morning all. I had dreams of being chased my an alligator. He kept popping up out of all water in the dream. Lakes, creeks, water glasses, the sink when I was washing my face. Towards the end of the night he even popped out of a rain drop, which I have to admit was quite clever of him. Not entirely sure why he was in my dreams to begin with though. Just thought I’d share. Now, on to the prompt.
I like this one. There are several ways it could go and different elements to play with.
Tuesday, April 16th: The car would not start.
The car would not start. She turned the key in the ignition and heard only a clicking sound. She turned off the car. ‘Please let it be the battery,’ she thought. She was fairly certain she could get a new battery from the auto parts store around the corner for twenty or thirty dollars.
“Certainly under fifty.” She assured herself. It had been a while since she bought a battery and was a little over twenty. ‘Inflation couldn’t have brought it up that much.”
It was her one hope. She could spend less than fifty dollars for a new battery. If it was anything more expensive then she was going to have to leave the car in the parking lot for a bit and take the bus until she could save up for any more expensive repairs.
She grabbed her bag from the passenger’s seat and got out of the car. She checked her wallet and found her bus pass still inside. She checked her watch. If she hurried she could still catch the bus and still get to work on time. She got out of the car, locked it behind herself and hurried towards the bus stop. After work, she would figure out the car and its issues.
As she hurried she tried to keep her mind blank. She made it to the bus stop just as the bus was pulling up and with a little extra burst of speed at the end, she managed to get on and settl herself in a seat. Seated and satisfied that she wouldn’t be late for work, she allowed herself a moment of relief.
It didn’t last. Soon angry thoughts about Gary surfaced. If it hadn’t been for him, then she would have more than fifty dollars in her account to throw at a car problem. ‘I would have been able to replace the car,’ she thought sourly.
She took a deep breath. Kim didn’t like dwelling on the bad things in life and in general counted herself as a positive person. She would not go as far as to saw she always looked on the bright side of life. Her mothers favorite lessons involved expecting the worst and being pleasantly surprised when the absolute worst did not occur. It didn’t make for an overly optimistic world view. Still, she didn’t dwell on misery as some of her family members did. In fact some of them turned the art of complaining into something resembling an Olympic sport.
Kim tried her best to let things go. Gary however was one of those things her brain couldn’t let go. Every time she thought of him, she felt a building anger. She was not used to being angry and didn’t like the way it made her feel, but somehow she couldn’t actually shake the anger. It stayed, like a hard knot in her bally. Most of the time it was easy to ignore, but at times like these it flared to life and swelled sending hot rage spewing through her.
She looked up calming exercises and tried one now as the bus trundled her towards her destination. ‘The past is behind me,’ she told herself. ‘I learn from the past and let it go.’
Kim almost snorted to herself. Gary certainly was a lesson.
Ten til Midnight 