Prompt: a character misplaced at his job, doing something he’s not meant to do 

 

Oh, jeez. This guy? All of 42 years old, three kids, one still in diapers, an adoring wife? This wasn’t right. Of course, neither was the woman next on his list, 92 and still volunteering at the homeless shelter. Who was he kidding, though? Sure, taking someone guilty of double homicide was somewhat easier and pedophiles he didn’t mind at all, but those were disheartening rare. His typical assignments were typical people. Families. Friends. Folks who would cry at at a well-attended funeral.

He knew everyone had to die. Obviously. He was Death, after all. But only because he couldn’t get a job as an angel. He’d really wanted to be one of those winged creatures who watched over speeding motorists and people who texted while walking. Unfortunately, so did everyone else. He hadn’t done well enough on his tests to make the final cut – tests made him nervous – and, desperate, he’d applied for an opening in Purgatory. He was as surprised as anyone else when, after two short years, he’d been promoted to Death. Which was a sort of angel and motorists were definitely involved, plus the pay was outstanding, but it wasn’t the dream he’d longed for in his youth.

It was just so depressing, the pleas for mercy, the last gasps, the mess. Ask anyone how they wanted to go and they’d say peacefully. In their sleep. But even when he showed up in the middle of the night, their spirits would cling to the pillows after being extracted, rend his garments, howl for the loss they should have expected but never did. Eventually, he was told, they settled down and accepted the new chapter in their afterlives. He didn’t get to see that part, however, tasked as he was with simply getting souls from point A to point B.

And now, this guy. What the hell was wrong with him? He knew he had high blood pressure and an inherited heart condition, but there he was, earlier today, sucking down chicken wings and throwing back beers as though a perfect summer day was some sort of inoculation against death. Death shook his head. People. They’d never learn.

Prompt:Two characters on a cruise ship

Gin, Ethan thought, once dimissed as a pathway to ruin, had regained popularity when colonists had discovered quinine to be an effective tool against mosquitos and, therefore, malaria. The problem was quinine tasted like baking soda. Antifreeze. Not that he’d tasted antifreeze. Point was, quinine was bitter. But with a little carbonated water and gin, squeeze of lime? Magic. Medicinal magic.

“Here you are, sir,” the waiter said, handing him a fresh glass. A blue umbrella stuck out of his drink, as did two straws and a plastic toothpick impaling a lime. The amount of garbage generated by this operation must equal that of a small city, he thought. Hell, probably the entire island of Manhattan.

“So what happens to the garbage?” Ethan asked the waiter, whose name, according to his shiny nametag, was Manny. Manny. Short for Manuel, most likely, but who the hell put Manny on a nametag? It looked ridiculous, like a man version of Jenny. Jenny, now she wouldn’t have tolerated all this waste, the straws, this stupid umbrella. “Plastic-free, please!” That’s how she ordered her drinks.

“The garbage?” Manny responded, his face puckering as if the very word offended him.

“Yes, the garbage.” Ethan gestured around, his sunburned arm swinging a circle encompassing the wave pool, the dreadlocked DJ, the screaming children. “We’re making a lot of trash. Where does it go?”

Now Manny’s forehead wrinkled in confusion. “I’m sure I don’t know, sir.”

“You’re sure you don’t know?” he mocked. Jesus, what an asshole I am. “Sorry,” he said. “I’m not trying to bust your balls. Just curious.” He pulled a wet twenty out of his swim trunks pocket. “Here,” he said. “Thanks for the drink.” Ethan held the limp bill out to Manny.

Manny’s face assumed a stoic position. “The drinks are complimentary until 11 p.m., sir.”

“Yes, yes, I know. This is for you. A tip,” he implored.

Manny reached out, pinched the twenty between his fingers, folded it into his palm like a magician about to perform a trick. And, like a good audience, Ethan looked elsewhere.

“Thank you,” Manny said. And vanished.

Ethan rose, gin and tonic cradled in his hand. He wound his way through the oiled women, evaded the glances of bored men, stepped over two separate crying children, tuned out the womp womp womp emanating from what felt like every corner of the deck. Down the stairs, past the couple making out against the railing, two forty-somethings rekindling their marital spark, he surmised at a glance, their embrace too easy to be new, their kissing punctuated by giggles suggesting they couldn’t believe they were doing this.

To the front of the ship, where even the richest voyagers were subject to wind and spray. Nature could only be held at bay for so long, he thought. He lifted his glass. To Jenny, he thought. To nature, he thought. To getting the hell off this floating city and back to his real life. Cheers.

Ethan drank to that.

(Hope this image works!)

Surfed yesterday. “Surf” being a very relative term when one paddles out into knee-high “waves.”
On the plus side, the ocean was glassy and the break, uncrowded.

At least pull over before dealing with them! (This is assuming teaching them to behave in the car hasn’t taken hold yet.)

Mother, toddler survive ‘horrible’ crash
A woman and her small child escaped injury Thursday night, after the mother drove a vehicle over a 200-foot embankment.
According to Officer Martin Abshire from the California Highway Patrol, the incident occurred shortly before 10 p.m. on the on-ramp to southbound U.S. Highway 101 from Fernbridge.

“The mother turned back to attend to the child, who was fussing, and because she was looking back and reaching back at 60 miles an hour, and because she was not paying attention to her driving, she moved to the right and went off the road, overturning many, many times,” Abshire said.
But the motorists were “virtually uninjured,” Abshire said, thanks to seat belts and a properly secured, high-quality child safety seat.

The vehicle could not be recovered from the road, and was instead retrieved from the bottom of the cliff.
Abshire said, “This was a horrible, tragic accident, but because people were wearing their seat belts and in child safety seats, they walked away uninjured.”

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Bicyclist receives moderate injuries after collision with automobile
The 28-year-old driver of a 2001 Hyundai, Eureka resident Amber Cessna, collided with 22-year-old Arcata resident David Suttle as he was riding his bicycle on the shoulder of the northbound lane of U.S. Highway 101 north of Loleta Drive on Monday, according to a California Highway Patrol news release. “Cessna said she was attending to her two small children in the back seat and was not paying attention to her driving,” the release stated. She swerved onto the shoulder of the highway and collided with Suttle, according to witness statements. Suttle received moderate injuries and was transported to St. Joseph Hospital in Eureka.

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Sheesh! In all fairness, I once turned left on Fifth Street from I Street, which put me the wrong-way on a one-way street, because I was yelling at the kids to stop arguing. Fortunately, no one was hurt and I was able to turn off quickly. But yeah, people in charge of the car should really make driving the number one priority over kids, phone, music, whatever.

is probably not the same thing as being incredibly self-involved. Just saying.

Woke up thinking about my time rant and still pondering the Harper’s mag article on “Manufacturing Depression.” The two twisted together in my sleepy mind; as I rush from place to place with no room for human error, I’m setting myself up for failure. (And when I say “I,” I mean “we,” as I know plenty of people like myself.) Further, I end up stressed out, focused on damage control and my own incompetence instead of actively connecting with the people I love or otherwise achieving any of the goals I’ve set, which makes me feel isolated, hopeless and resentful despite this lovely life I have. So then I become one of those people about whom I would normally think, “What’s she got to be so damn depressed about?!”

I mean, I know people with real problems. Heck, I have bigger problems. Why is it the cumulative effect of the small ones that sends me almost over the edge? (“Almost” being the key word.) In fact, the big ones, like Nick’s diabetes, make me sad in a logical, concrete way that’s totally different from the vague, deep discontent I suffer from after a day of rushing around failing to quite live the life I have the way I want.

This is hardly just my problem – that feeling is well entrenched in American literature, movies and the profits of the pharmaceutical industy. In fact, it’s kinda boring, as if I was sitting around whining about being so fat and then had an epiphany that I should maybe get off my ass and stop eating so much.

That’s usually the solution, isn’t it? Getting off one’s ass?

Inspired by yesterday’s wacky weather, I made rainbow salad.

This little creature was fluttering against the window on our porch when I arrived home. After grabbing my camera and snapping a quick photo, I gently set a washcloth on it, then, terrified I’d accidently squish some vital organ, I carried it to the grass, unwrapped the washcloth and watched it zip away.