Just a bit of fiction for friends. I started it three years ago. It’s just been fading away in my dark and dusty drafts file. Might as well share it along with all the other paragraphs I’ve posted tonight.
It wasn’t quite the last parking spot in the lot, but it was far enough away to guarantee Elmer would not just be late, but very late. He slung his backpack over his shoulder, grabbed the pile of paper on the passenger’s seat, and launched himself from his car. When he’d passed about 50 rows of compact cars and last century sedans, he checked his watch. It was never going to happen.
Weaving through campus, he decided to cross the quad and jumped over the low hedges bordering the bookstore. Who am I right now? He tried to send a telepathic message to Benz to start the warm-ups. Pole, pole, POLE! He veered left and barely avoided a pigeon pecking at the remainders of someone’s lunch. Why do people do that? He checked the time as he passed the clock tower. This was not good.
As he passed the Math & Science buildings, he transitioned to a fast walk and tried to regain some composure. Oh, Benz, please start the warm-ups! At least he could see his building now. Someone called to him. He turned to look, to make sure it wasn’t a student. Nope. Just Mark from last semester. Or, was his name Mike? He shot a wave and kept up his pace.
Then, he saw the theatre building. He slowed down. What day is it? The bay doors were open, and he automatically started scanning the broad open space, peering deep inside the darkness of the empty theatre. A truck that had been idling before him churned into gear and pulled away. He had barely even been moving, but now he stopped completely. He brushed his accidental bangs from his forehead and dropped half the stack of papers he had been gripping all the way across campus. He fell to his knees, hastily gathered the sheets together, and for once was glad it wasn’t a windy day.
Getting back to his feet he looked across the small road that divided him from his building. And, the theatre. Oh—she was there now. He could see her rising from the auditorium to the stage, her head buried in a clipboard. She flipped through the pages and he couldn’t stop himself from watching her cross upstage to a tall stool that was always stationed by the bay door.
She didn’t sit on the stool, though. She leaned against the wall, one sneakered foot pushing against it. A car honked. He suddenly realized he was standing in the middle of the road. What are you doing, El?
He really had to knock this off.
The Best Kind © 2022, Caroline J.M. Gregan
The Saxophone Player's Wife 