Morning all and Happy Monday. I hope you are doing fabulously well. I had a nice quiet weekend and am more than ready to get started on my week. So without any further ado, lets jump into the morning prompt. Timers set to fifteen minutes.
I like this. I would need a boat load more details, but I think this could be the start to a really fun mystery.
Monday, July 15th: It was very much a part of his heritage.
It was very much a part of his heritage. He didn’t like it much, but it was ingrained in him. He tried to leave it behind, but somehow the family always drew him back. Each year when the call came to gather at the old farm, he went. He knew when the call would come in. He knew that when May rolled around and one of his family members name and number appeared on his cell phone’s screen what the call would be about.
Under normal circumstances they left him alone. He was left to his own life and only called home when he was needed for the official gathering. If not for that, he would be ignored. He wondered what would happen if he ignored the call. He suspected, some one would just come in person to retrieve him.
He had never been brave enough to test that.
‘It is also how I can keep track of things,’ he told himself. Since no one called him for anything, the once a year ritual was when he found out about everything else going on with the family. It is how he found out that his uncle had been in the hospital with a heart attack and his younger cousin broke his arm falling out of a tree. It is how he found out that his aunt remarried and was now expecting a child. On the one trip home he found out everything that happened throughout the year.
‘It’s not that I don’t love them,’ he thought. He did. He liked hearing about their lives. He just didn’t overly care for the rituals and the remembrances and all the daily details that were a part of their ancient heritage. He wished they would call when he wasn’t needed. That they would let him be a part of their lives when his presence wasn’t viewed as necessary.
But they didn’t. He left and because of that was ignored until he was needed. Then he was summoned home.
Thinking about it gave him a headache. He looked at the calendar. No one called yet. Waiting was giving him a stomach ache. He thought about calling, but the last time he did his cousin Frank hung up on him after telling him that he would be called when the time was right. If he called when it wasn’t May then no one would actually answer.
So he waited. The days of May slid past. He focused on work. He buried himself in it, barely looking up, barely checking the calendar. Still as the days fluttered past and there was still no call he found himself anxiously looking at the phone.
Had something gone wrong? How would he know? He reached for the phone several times but never pulled up the number. Frank’s words still rolled around in his head. They would call when they were ready for him. He snorted. He grew angry and annoyed. He tried to set it to the side.
May ended and the calendar flipped into June. Still no one called. ‘Maybe everything is really late this year,’ he thought. He tried to remember when the rituals had been delayed. ‘There were those rains when I was seven,’ he thought. ‘That had delayed things by a good couple of months.’
June slowly slid past. Still no call came. July arrived.
He decided he could wait no longer and called. He started with Frank figuring if someone was going to tell him off it would be Frank and he might as well get it over with. No one answered. he tried another number, Ernestine. She didn’t answer.
Ten til Midnight 