The exercise:
Write about: good fortune.
Yup.
Mine:
We went for a BBQ dinner at the beach with Kat's parents and Becky this evening. It was really nice, weather, food, and company wise.
When we got home it took me about half a minute to realize I didn't have my phone. I searched our bags, double checked the car, but that sinking feeling was hitting me already. That knowledge that I had done something stupid and the phone was gone.
I tried calling it, just to be sure, and we couldn't hear it ringing. So I hopped back in the car and... ahem, drove very safely and within the posted speed limits... back to the beach. I searched where we had been eating, the parking lot, all the places I had followed Max as he wandered around. Nada.
I think that was about the time I remembered that most likely what had happened was this: I had put my phone on top of the car while I was getting Max back into the car to go home, got distracted, and forgot it there. Which meant that we drove off with the phone on the roof.
A slow drive home tracing the route we had taken revealed nothing. So I double checked the car again and then used Kat's phone to send a text to mine, asking whoever might have found it to please call her number.
A few minutes later, just as I was really getting going with the mental ass kicking I felt I deserved, her phone rang. And, amazingly, it was a guy who had found my phone at the side of the road outside his house, about two blocks from where we'd been parked.
I drove over (with a hastily picked quart of apricots as a sign of appreciation in tow) and collected my phone. Not only did I have the good fortune of a kind soul finding my phone, but I was also lucky enough to retrieve it in full working order. The only damage was a crack to the protective case, which I'm going to replace just because it's a little sharp and Max has a tendency to grab it whenever I leave it within reach.
I am feeling very grateful tonight.
2 comments:
Wow, that was a stroke of good luck there at the end! Well done on getting your phone back, and that was a very nice gesture with the apricots as well. I'm sure the guy who found your phone also thought he'd had a pretty fortunate evening after it all!
And with only one small crack to the case, which is cheap to replace after all, that's doubly fortunate :)
Good fortune
The smell of sewage got stronger as you moved away from the river, and all the streets were narrow and dark. So narrow that in places a man had to back up to let someone coming in the other direction pass, and sometimes duck, depending on what -- or who -- they were carrying. Brine blew in on the occasional breeze, but it seemed like even the wind didn't want to venture in where the stink was and the streets were typically still and hot.
Flies buzzed up in a cloud as I passed, and I avoided looking down. I could guess what they were feasting on, and I didn't need my guesses confirmed. I pushed past a pile of rubbish that might once have been someone's wardrobe and paused at a tiny, cobbled crossroads. I checked to see if anyone was watching me, and I couldn't see anyone, obvious or inconspicuous. I was sure that at least two of the shadows formed where the buildings made corners were occupied, but there are some things you just have to accept.
I looked down. Set into the cobbles was a flat iron plate, the kind of thing you could mistake for a manhole cover if you were daft enough to think that a place that stank of sewage could have sewers. I stamped on it, three quick, two long, and as my foot came down a sixth time there was a puff of cerulean smoke and everything changed.
Diana leaned on the lower half of a stable-door, the upper half open and proclaiming that her shop was doing business. She was busty, brunette and as pale as a mushroom. She smiled when she saw me, and pulled out the scales.
"Selling me some more bad luck?" she asked, and her voice was like the gurgle of the sea over shells and pebbles at the water's edge. I shook my head.
"Buying me some good fortune," I said. "I hope," I added.
She raised her forehead, but only because she keeps forgetting that she doesn't have eyebrows any more.
"For my best producer I've always got a little something held in reserve," she said. She twinkled a smile at me. "Can I ask what you'd want good fortune for?"
"I need to find a way into Lobelis Castle," I said.
"You'll be lucky!" she replied, and then a moment later heard herself and laughed.
Greg - love your descriptions in this one, but that's no surprise. You've left me wanting to hear more about Lobelis Castle though!
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