Monday August 26th, 2013

The exercise:

Write something that has to do with: the horizon.

Feeling quite tired, so I'm just going to get to it.

Mine:

Professor Kairos Damus stood on the balcony attached to his hotel room, a pocket watch dangling from his right hand as he contemplated the western horizon. Festive noises floated up to him from the pool deck far below as other guests reveled in the afternoon sunshine. The professor would not be joining them, for that was not his purpose there. In fact his bags remained packed in the bedroom behind him, despite his having arrived the previous day.

He hadn't expected to observe anything until that afternoon, but he'd been concerned his calculations had been flawed and had therefore caused his instruments to be less than perfectly accurate. Had that been the case he wanted to know exactly how far off their prediction had been, which would allow for corrective tinkering.

But so far everything was going to their schedule. Professor Damus was struggling to contain his excitement as he continued his watch, first counting down the hours and then minutes. 

That was not his real name, of course.

He was experimenting with aliases at each of his destinations, trying to find one that he would go public with once his work had been honed to perfection. His true identity must remain secret, for some would surely confuse prediction with causation.

People could be such fools when advanced science was involved.

As minutes descended into seconds he raised the watch to eye level. He could not stop himself from counting down the final moments out loud.

"Five, four, three, two, one... there she is."

With that he returned to his room, collected his bags, and took the elevator down to the parking lot beneath the building. One accurate prediction was not enough to satisfy his requirements, and the next tornado was scheduled to touchdown in less than two days on the other side of the country.