Morning all. I am feeling much better than I was on Friday. I sort of checked out half way through. Teeth man, teeth. But all is good and it is time to jump back into our morning prompts. Timers set for fifteen minutes and off we go.
I like this. Not entirely certain where I’m going to take it but I like the set up.
Monday, May 18th: The engines rumbled, vibrating the entire building.
The engines rumbled, vibrating the entire building. Elliot looked up from his work. He blinked away long lines of code and felt like he was swimming back towards reality. His eyes refocused and he looked through the front window of his office and into the street below.
The rumbling sound continued. The windows rattled, he was certain the bricks did as well. He could feel it in his chest, the vibrations. He stood up and walked over to the windows wondering what was causing it.
He looked down into the street and saw it was filled with a sea of motorcycles. They were driving slowly five bikes in a row as they made their way down Main Street.
Elliot nodded, remembering the admonition to not park on Main Street today. It was the annual running of the bikes. He knew that there was a charity each year and that funds were raised. He was never entirely certain how the funds were raised.
When he was younger he competed in a walk a thon and he had to collect pledges for a monetary amount for every mile he covered. He wasn’t certain if this went by the same principles or not.
‘I suppose they check the odometers.’
Elliot hadn’t checked on details. He did contribute but it was a one time donation that wasn’t based on mileage. He knew that the bikes started here and flowed out of town on a massive circuit and then ended up somewhere else. They had been arriving here for the past three days. He saw bikes everywhere and because it was somewhat problematic to drive in a car he walked from place to place, putting off every errand he couldn’t reach by foot until everything was over.
He knew it was an annual thing and each year he wrote the check, he had just never managed to be in town for the event before. His work took him all over the country. This was the first year that the project he was working on required him to be here instead of in someone else’s corporate office. He glanced back at the computer, the lines of code still filling the screen.
He looked away, back down at the street more than happy to leave the headache his findings would cause for a little while. The street looked festive and he smiled, even though he didn’t much care for the rumbling in his chest. He didn’t care for the feeling in his ribs or his throat. He wasn’t sure how those below stood it for extended periods of time.
‘Maybe it is just intense because they are all in one place,’ Elliot thought. He assumed that once they left downtown the tightly packed parade would spread out over the multi lanes of the highway as they went towards their next destination. ‘It has to be so much worse at ground level.’
Elliots office was on the second floor of one of the old brick commercial buildings lining main street. From here he could see the crowds gathered to watch the bikes as well as the bikes themselves. It was an amazing sight and he knew plenty of people who loved riding their motorcycles. He often heard stories filled with longing for the open road.
He could see the longing and always nodded and smiled when his motorcycle riding friends suggested he join them. It simply didn’t appeal to him the way it did for them. He went on rides occasionally. It didn’t bother him it just didn’t spark the kind of joy he saw in them. He knew never to try explaining that as any time he did it resulted in justifications of why he didn’t enjoy that ride and how much more he would like another one. He stopped trying to explain and lately he had been too busy to take anyone up on their offers to join in. As he looked, Elliot realized he could pick out several of his friends in the rows of bikes. He was glad they were participating as he knew they would enjoy themselves and enjoy telling him stories later. He liked the stories. They were a glimpse of a different life a different way of existing and a good reminded that not everyone needed to like the same things to get along.
Ten til Midnight 