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 5: Bob backed out of the parking space, and shifted into drive, turning away from the Bowl-a-Rama.
Bob backed out of the parking space, and shifted into drive, turning away from the Bowl-a-Rama. It slipped from his thoughts as he merged with traffic. While his city wasn’t a large one, and in truth he doubted it could even be called a city, all of the office buildings in his complex let out at the same time. As a result, traffic was heavy towards the exits and felt bumper to bumper for a few blocks but then started to thin.
The traffic thinned fairly quickly for Bob but it lasted long enough to erase thoughts of the Bowling Alley from this thoughts. As always he took a deep breath and exhaled with relief when the traffic thinned. There weren’t a lot of cars going in his direction and as he headed towards the Waterson Street Bridge, the other cars peeled off going to more settled neighborhoods.
‘Not that mine isn’t settled,’ he thought to himself. He was alone on the road as he thumped across the bridge. His neighborhood was one of those erected in the post World War two housing boom. The neighborhood was rolled out like a giant train set with nearly identical gabled house in long rows. Bob bought his house thinking he could lose himself as one among many. Then a developer started buying up some of the less well maintained homes.
He and his neighbors thought it might be the beginning of gentrification efforts and wondered about house flippers. The houses weren’t renovated though. They were demolished and a large scale hardware store was put in it’s place. A gas station followed and then one of those bulk purchasing membership clubs. It was like a Cosco or a Sam’s club, but a regional variety rather than a national one. Other houses were soon bought, but renovation wasn’t on the buyer’s mind.
It was believed that new housing would be a better option and long rows of houses were bought and demolished to clear the way. There were several developers in on the plan. One ended up going bankrupt. Another became embroiled in a nasty divorce and two went to jail for nefarious schemes. The end result was that the street Bob lived on was more of an outpost than a neighborhood.
Construction and demolition stopped and nature began encroaching. Bob’s block consisted of five houses. His was in the middle. Eddie lived on one side of him and Enid on the other. The two houses on either end of the street were rentals and currently unoccupied. There were other small outposts in this formerly suburban landscape and Bob knew they were occupied as well. He couldn’t see them though as trees and brush now filled much of the empty lots. The streets remained the same planned grid, but it felt as though he lived in a forest. Usually when he was at home, Eddie and Enid were the only two people he saw.
Ten til Midnight 