Morning all. It is very nice to get back into a more typical rhythm. I’m also glad my mom was good enough that I felt comfortable leaving her. That is a great blessing. It is nice to be back in my own bed though. So now that things are settling back into routine, lets start today’s routine off with a writing prompt. Timers set to fifteen minutes and off we go.
I have no idea where this is going but I kind of like the set up. Small half forgotten town facing a major unknown. Well major depending on how it gets written. Something I will be thinking about later.
Tuesday, March 25th: The trails stretched off into the distance.
The trails stretched off into the distance. I studied them as I lay on my back on the newly mown grass. The white trails from the airplanes were nothing more than exhaust fumes but they puzzled me. We weren’t near any commercial airport and weren’t close to any military air base. Yet for the past three weeks we would see the trails of plains streaked across the sky.
It was peculiar.
We knew they were planes because nature didn’t generally go for that many straight trails where clouds were concerned. In addition there was the noise. The planes, for whatever reason they were overhead, weren’t being stealthy. The vibrations from their passage shook the windows and rumbled like concentrated thunder overhead.
They streaked through the air as dusk approached and their black shapes could be seen against the darkening sky with ease should one look up. As the sound travelled at a different speed from the plane, knowing where to look was key. I, along with most of the neighborhood, was getting fairly good at spotting the planes.
There was speculation about them.
People wondered where they were coming from as well as where they were going. Everyone wondered if we were simply on their flight path and incidental to their maneuvers or if we were the focus of their interest.
The second option was usually met with smirks if not outright laughs. The small community of Garrison Drift hadn’t been of interest to anyone for several hundred years. Even then it was only of minor import. There was once a garrison about twenty five miles from the current town center. It was never developed into an actual fort let alone a military base.
At it’s height the garrison consisted of eight buildings total. When it was shut down many people left and went elsewhere. Others drifted to the small community that started to grow in order to supply the garrison with things it didn’t have shipped in. At the time the community didn’t even had a name. It was only after the Garrison shut down and the soldiers that stayed made it their home that it became known as Garrison Drift.
The garrison buildings were a museum site and in school we all toured them. The eight buildings were preserved and we were taken through each of them and shown relics from the era. Old muskets, tin dishes and narrow barracks beds. It was the field trip in the area and each year’s history teacher tried to put their own spin on it. I think my first visit was in third grade and then I went every year until graduation.
Once everyone identified where the decommissioned soldiers went, Garrison Drift and it’s people dropped off everyone’s radar. Any suggestions that we could be the reason for the recent string of fly bys was a joke.
No one was interested in us.
I stretched and wiggled my toes in the grass
Ten til Midnight 