Monday, July 12, 2010

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He was dreaming of having chocolate pudding while also being out of ammunition with Albert Einstein during a fight against generic terrorists when his alarm so rudely interrupted him. He took a few seconds of hitting the racket maker before finally hitting the snooze button, which was the exact moment he realized what it was and that he needed to slide the switch to the off position.

Another day. It was a Tuesday, he wanted to get to work early to finish a project that was due last week due to no fault of his own.
"Ok body, here we go." and he got up and walked to the bathroom and turned on the shower. As he waited for the water to get hot he looked at himself in the mirror, popped a few new zits that had popped up over the night and spent a few seconds admiring the beard he had just grown over the course of the last month.
"Lookin' good."

After he was done showering he dried off, got dressed and walked into the office. He woke his computer from a sleep and then perused the Internet. Most of his favorite sites hadn't updated this morning yet. Must be nice to be able to sleep in once in a while, but he didn't have time for that. He opened his work email and responded to a few emails he had gotten overnight from some of the Asian and European crews, a small crisis here, some misplaced parts there; a few email responses and they were solved. Not a bad start, and looking at the clock, he would be earlier than he had expected. He jumped up, grabbed his keys, his phone and his badge and headed out the door of his apartment which he promptly locked, and then headed down the hallway to the door.

Outside seemed a little too quiet. It was odd to him, but he didn't think much of it, just got in his car and headed out of the apartment complex parking lot, took a left onto 42nd street which would take him most of the way to his job, about 20 minutes away. He hadn't gotten too far when he noticed a car that had crashed into a light pole.

He slowed down and went around the car, which was still running, but nobody was in it or near it. He assumed that the driver had either been removed by paramedics, or was in one of the nearby houses, calling for a tow truck. But as he drove he saw something vexing. A lot of cars and trucks were in the ditch, in front yards, smashed into trees, or each other. All still running, no drivers, no four-way blinkers, no evidence of police or tow trucks, etc. It was as if everyone had just jumped out of their cars and hid. No, that couldn't be right... why are all the car doors closed? If you were to jump out of a moving vehicle there should be some doors opened. He thought of stopping, but then realized that if he did, it was possible that these people had been robbed, or kidnapped or abducted by aliens or another of a thousand different possibilities that he didn't want any part of, so slowly he kept driving towards work.

There were many more abandoned cars on the way until he spotted the police cruiser which was in the same condition of the other vehicles he saw, slightly smashed into the back of a Volvo which was slightly dented by the Dodge truck in front of it. The truck was against a brick wall, which it had damaged a bit. It must have been going slower than the other vehicles. In any case, he slowed down even more to check out the police car, but he found nothing different here. No signs that anyone was around, no lights, no nothing. He decided to continue on to work, hoping that someone could explain what was going on.

1 comment:

  1. I realize now that our hero should be turning on the radio. I will go back and edit that part in eventually.

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