Morning all. I hope you are doing well. I went out and checked the back garden bed this morning. I w certain that the direct sow seeds I put in rotted somehow in all the rain of the past few weeks and while most did, some are now sprouting and it makes me happy. Not bad for a mid week pick me up. And now it is time for the prompt. Lets see how happy gardening news affects the writing. (I’m usually not a happy morning person).
Not exactly a happy post, but I am now curious about Dan.
Wednesday, May 22nd: It is all in the timing.
“It is all in the timing,” he said. He looked at the pan. “Timing and conviction,” he amended. “I must have conviction. I will flip this omelet. Judging the timing right, he grasped the handle of his pan and tried to flip the omelet with conviction and precise timing. It wasn’t a perfect flip.
‘But at least this time it stayed in the pan. He used the spatula to adjust it so that it once again lay in a flat circle at the bottom of the pan. H wasn’t entirely sure why he felt the need to be able to flip the omelet in the pan or even when he decided it was needed.
Somehow though he felt that if he could at least provide himself with a perfect omelet then everything was okay in his world. Somehow the flipping became a part of that. If his omelet turned out well than his day would too. It was a harbinger of things to come.
Dan finished cooking his omelet and slid it to the waiting plate. He turned off the stove and shifted the pan so it was no longer over the still hot burner. He took the plate to the table, snagging a fork on the way.
The omelet didn’t look bad. It had the perfect amount of brown to the edges. It had no strange runny bits inside and featured the perfect egg to addition ratio. ‘And the flip was better than average.’
He sat down to eat, his inner self somehow convinced that all of these thing meant that he would have a better than average day. Nothing dreadful would go wrong.
As Dan ate his breakfast he felt himself relax with the certainty of what his day held at the same time wondering where the certainty came from. The other day someone dropped a comment about going to therapy for help with a compulsion. He thought it had something to do with dating the same sort of wrong person repeatedly but didn’t pry. It wasn’t really his conversation. It did get him thinking. As he knew his coworker was probably compensating for something in his past, Dan knew his omelet obsession was probably something in his. He just couldn’t think of what it could be.
As he ate he tried to remember when he had something other than omelets for breakfast. When was the last time he poured himself a bowl of cereal or made a waffle? He couldn’t recall. As he chewed, Dan closed his eyes and tried to picture himself as a small child.
‘Children like the prizes in cereal boxes right?’ he thought. Instead of picturing cereal, he tried to picture one of the cereal prizes he might have been thrilled about as a child. None came to mind.
He opened his eyes and continued with his breakfast. When he was through, he put the plate into the sink and went to the bathroom to brush his teeth before work. He continued thinking about it but no further insights occurred. ‘I wonder if I should see a therapist.’
Ten til Midnight 