Piece of Fiction: Day at a Time

Here's another piece of fiction, a vignette. It's loosely based on one of my mornings a month or 2 ago, and then recently committed to paper during - for the better or worse like some other posts - a boring speech at a conference.

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10am he stepped out the house door to wind-swept streets. He’d overslept, but the extra hours of sleep they inspired a calm rather than a hurry. He walked two blocks briefcase steady in hand to his parked car. Fallen leaves rustled in a breeze, subtly refreshing, their dull color further blunted by a thin morning fog. The curvy suburban street lay motionless and eerie, cars at rest along tall slanted tree lines. He was acutely aware of his hair, how his bangs they shifted along his forehead and atop his ears, this from the extra sleep.

His navy car was parked alone around a corner. To his surprise a thin and inconsistent layer of mud stuck to the exterior. The dried dirt was new he hadn’t seen it before. Perhaps it was the wind overnight? Delaying briefly his commute the man walked around the car. Dirt was on all sides. He looked up focused on his surroundings, wondering if he had missed something in his extra hours of sleep that seemed to produce an aesthetic high, but it wasn’t clear if it leaned towards intoxication or sobriety. What had I missed?, he thought as he opened his car door, scratching some dry mud. Still he hadn’t seen a soul on the street, nor a moving car nor any signs of life. What’s happened?

He drove the same route he did every morning, around curves tucked under trees, over short hills studded with old houses, around bends with limited view – a path he knew as well as the lines on his palm, a drive he could navigate in his sleep which seemed as inevitable as life itself. Still, the bigger roads were just as empty as the smaller ones and this he pondered with the small piece of mind he afforded it, but he couldn’t help but notice the fleeting feeling that time its very essence seemed to stand still.

1025am he turned into his work’s parking garage and funneled around the poorly lit concrete labyrinth until he found an empty spot for his newly grunged up car. Still yet again not a soul nor even a moving car. He turned off the ignition. Flipped off the headlights. Straining in his seat to pocket his keys, he noticed the red backlights finally of a passing car behind him. He looked at himself in the rearview mirror, and raising a hand I combed my fingers through my hair looking forward animatedly to another day.

-KJ Sphere: Related Content