This year I am working on a story called Bob vs. The Alien Slug Monsters. Instead of an outline I have a basic list of plot points I want to cover between meeting Bob and sending him off to fight the king of the slugs. There is more of a cast of characters than an actual outline, so we will see how the story develops. And with that intro we continue with Bob Versus the Alien Slug Monsters…
Day 4: Bob shrugged.
Bob shrugged. He felt that everyone was crazy in one way or another, it was just a matter of degrees and which crazy matched yours. Thinking about his own level of crazy, Bob left the office and headed to his car. The old Toyota had seen many years of loyal service. Bob rewarded it’s loyalty by giving it routine checkups and making sure that any damage was repaired immediately. Others may replace their vehicles every few years but Bob planned to see just how many years he could maintain his trusty Toyota before the maintenance grew more expensive than a replacement.
He slipped inside and after fastening his seatbelt he turned the key in the ignition. To say it purred would be to overstate it, but there were no hiccups he could detect and the car didn’t feel the need to alert him to any problems. He patted the dashboard affectionately.
Bob turned to glance out of the back window before reversion, his eyes automatically flicking to the skyline. In this part of town there wasn’t much of one. Mostly he was surrounded by other office buildings. Some trick of fate, design or cosmic city planning managed to leave a gap in the newer office buildings so that they almost seemed a surrounding from for the old Bowl-a-Rama.
The building where Bob worked was on a slight rise and looked down the slope to the older neighborhood. No matter where he parked there was always a view of the Bowl-a Rama. The sign boasted several bowling pins and the neon lights alternated from one pin to another so that it looked as though the pin was constantly being knocked down and re set. The flashing of the lights made looking at the sign automatic. It drew the eye.
He supposed that was the reason for the design in the first place but to him it always looked as though the sign was signaling him. Reminding him of it’s presence no matter how hard he tried to forget it. He hadn’t been in the Bowl-a-Rama since his Aunt Margaret died and had no intention of heeding any call the bowling alley made to him.
No amount of laser bowling, half off appetizers, happy hour specials or tournaments was going to get him into that bowling alley again. Unwilling to start his day with a reminder of it’s presence, Bob always made certain to park facing away from the bowling alley, giving the Bowl-a-Rama the cold shoulder. It meant that it was the first thing he saw when he was leaving.
He didn’t mind that so much a he got to see it and then after mentally acknowledging it, drive off in the opposite direction. When he purchased his house there were two man considerations, One was price and the other was that it was on the opposite side of town from the Bowl-a-Rama. If his office wasn’t located within sight of it, he would have forgotten it’s existence. Since he couldn’t, he took pleasure in driving away from it, mentally flipping off it’s invitation to return.
Bob backed out of the parking space, and shifted into drive, turning away from the Bowl-a-Rama.
Ten til Midnight 