Happy Juneteeth everyone. After I do my morning posts and caffeinate myself I am going to a picnic to enjoy a local celebration. Well actually it isn’t until this afternoon, so I will pack the sandwiches and bug spray and sunscreen and then go enjoy myself. But it is a little midweek holiday So lets see what comes out with today’s prompt before the picnic begins.
I think I started off with one idea and then slipped into another. I do kind of like the blend of someone hiding their skills suddenly finding themselves in a situation where they have to show them, but I need to figure out the story before doing anything with that idea.
Wednesday, June 19th: They took shelter in the caves.
They took shelter in the caves. They barely managed to get all of their gear under it’s protective cover before the rains came. At first it was only a few drops, a short shower that they hoped would blow past quickly. Then the rains increased. They kept up a steady but drenching pace. Soon the dusty ground in front of the cave was turned to slick mud and the low points sloping downward channeled the rains like a natural gutter.
As the rains increased they began to look like raging rivers flanking the slick mud pathway descending into the valley. They settle in to wait out the storm but it wasn’t a comfortable waiting. All around them they could hear small stones loosened by the storm loose their place on the slopes and go siding down. They crashed into trees and smashed into other larger stones, sometimes loosening their hold.
They all thought about the precarious and very much unknown cave they were sheltering in. Despite doubting that their actions would affect it, they were all quiet and relatively still as they waited, not wanting any of their noise and movement to add to destruction. The ground before had been dry and desiccated. Some reasoned that it was simply a dry area while others thought they were in a dry season.
Ivan knew that even deserts could sometimes have flash floods and that dry seasons could end. He thought that might be what they were looking at now. The end of a dry season rather than a flash flood in a desert. He studied the flora and fauna as they moved as well as the stratigraphy of the exposed rock faces. He listened to the others debate, but kept his thoughts to himself. After all, he had no knowledge of such things. He tried to remind himself that he was an accountant.
While he loved math and had taken accountancy classes and kept up his credentials, he did so mostly because his family trust accountancy and careers in finance. They didn’t care what else he thought about doing but didn’t thing geology would suit anything but a teacher. Even after he left school with three PhDs behind his name, his family thought he worked at the corporate firm as an accountant. He knew it made them happy so he never bothered correcting them and kept up his accounting credentials. He even helped out with balancing the books for his family when it was needed. The family was long gone when everything crumbled. They were the only ones who knew of the accountancy background and when he had to find a new place where no one would notice him, he leaned into it and set everything else to the side. At times he found it amusing. Other times, he knew he struggled to keep his mouth shut.
Ten til Midnight 