Monday January 5th, 2015

The exercise:

Write about: the shipment.

Went out in the snow this morning to take some pictures. I was mostly just experimenting with camera settings and trying to learn a few things, but a couple pictures turned out fairly well. I liked this one best:


That should give you an idea of how much snow we've had the last couple days. Thankfully it seems to be done for the foreseeable future and temperatures are on the rise, so maybe we'll be able to drive the car somewhere in the next couple of days.

Mine:

It took five fully loaded trains to deliver the entire order. The route was almost entirely secure, traveling through terrain that most thieves couldn't be bothered with traversing empty-handed, much less with loot in tow.

Almost. Most.

If a man needed further proof that Henry and I were a different breed, I would have happily shown him our plans to hit those trains.

Yes, trains. Plural. As in, all five of them.

Hey, if we could do it once, why couldn't we pull it off multiple times? No reason at all, as best we figured.

In the end, it turned out we figured wrong. But that won't come as much of a surprise, if you know anything at all about me and my old friend Henry.

5 comments:

Unknown said...

Just recently found you, here is my first effort. Thanks for giving us inspiration.

Janey waited with some anticipation for the package to arrive. It was to arrive today, even sometime this morning. She had been so excited to finally get a chance to order it. It was a surprise for her son, Jace who was celebrating his 5th birthday. The shipment would arrive soon. She glanced over to where Jace quietly played with his toy soldiers. She knew this shipment would be a astound and fascinate Jace, who loved looking at them online.

Up the road the old truck slowly made it's way down the street. The young man was looking for a particular address. He knew he had something special to deliver today. He glanced over to it sitting in the seat, almost like it knew something special was happening today. The young man glance to the left & to the right as he pulled through the small intersection. Finally he arrived at his destination.

He reached over a picked up the package, because it was fixing to be home for the first time. He glanced down as the pup licked his hand and he laughed. As he got out of the truck, he looked up to the house as his wife and son, stepped out onto the porch.

Jace's eye's where huge. Tugging at his mother's hand, he breaks free and runs over to his Dad. Looks way up at him, 'DADDY, what is that? is it for ME?' As he leaned over and placed the pup in his sons hands. 'Yes son, just for you.'

Greg said...

That's a great picture and makes me wish that I got snow at winter. We had frost last week, but this week it's warmed up somewhat and all I'm getting is rain. It's thoroughly disappointing. That slide looks like it would be great fun to go down and push all the snow off, but you'd need a change of clothes afterwards!
I only know of one little crew who are mad enough to take on a five-train robbery like that, but Ben doesn't usually use Henry's real name... Still, I like the notion, and I'd definitely like to hear the full tale sometime! Maybe now you're snowbound for winter, Marc? :-)

The shipment
Tim's mom opening the door on the second ring of the doorbell, wondering why her fifteen year old son had suddenly legged it out of the backdoor. She'd grounded him two weeks ago for his school science experiment that had shattered the glass in every greenhouse in the street, so she knew he'd not been outside without her express permission. In fact, she was sure that he'd been spending most of his time indoors playing games on his computer.
The man on the doorstep looked like a delivery man, and he looked wary. He thrust a clipboard at her.
"Signature required, ma'am," he said.
"For a package?"
"A shipment, ma'am."
She frowned, but he tapped the clipboard insistently with his finger so she obediently signed. And then wondered...
"What kind of–" she began, but the man had snatched the clipboard back, checked the signature, and was running back to the cab of his lorry.
"Unload it, Jez!" he yelled.
Her phone beeped, and she dragged it out of her pocket. It was Tim.
Sorry mom, the text read. I made eighteen hundred dollars on the stock market, but I couldn't trade out of the last one in time. This is probably the shipment of 400 tonnes of horse manure arriving.
As the first lorry upended its stinking load over the front garden, she texted back: Get your arse back here, kiddo, you've got a lot of gardening to do.

morganna said...

Wrapped with care
Mailed promptly
It sits at the office,
Undelivered.
-------------
Love both of these today.

Greg, I can just see the teenager and his mom. :)

Anonymous said...

That sure is a lot of snow! I'm still waiting to get our avalanche.

The Shipment:

“Everything seems to be in order here, Sir.”
“Everything?”
“Yep.”
“Are you sure?”
“Yep.”
“When was the last dose administered?”
“When the sun was at its zenith.”
“We must act quickly, then. Only a couple more hours before they wake.”
“I’ll gather the carriage.”
“Good. And be quiet about it. We don’t want disturb the Innkeeper’s wife.”

Marc said...

Gina - hello and welcome to the blog! I'm glad you found it and I hope you find it useful :)

Oh lord, I can see this happening in my life sooner than later. Nicely captured, and I look forward to seeing more of your writing here.

Greg - rain in winter is the worst :(

It's been a while since I visited those two. I remembered him using his real name at least a couple times, so I went with that.

Hah, I'd say Tim's mom handled this one rather perfectly.

Morganna - hurry up and wait, right? Bah!

Ivybennet - whereabouts are you located? Do you usually get a lot of snow there?

Hmm, that is an intriguing scene. I would be happy to read what comes next!