Spotted, or, A Story of Unconventional Airport Security
filed in Sticky Rambles on Jun.27, 2010
I wrote this up for a clever little thing called FridayFlash and 2 things happened: First I was dragged away from my comfortable home climes to frost cupcakes and put sprinkles on them, and then by the time I got home and managed to finish my story not only was it not Friday, but clocking in at WAY over the recommended 1000 word count, the story isn’t even a flash. I’m not complaining, though. I got to eat a cupcake and I finished a whole story. Since I haven’t posted here in a while, I thought I would share it with you. The poster for this one is awesome. Here’s an example of a proper (and awesome) FridayFlash story.
Spotted
Time was, Clem mused, when a man’s thoughts were his own. They were private, nobody else’s business. These days that wasn’t true anymore, at least not if you wanted to travel somewhere. While he was busy thinking about this and sipping his coffee his co-worker Laura was leaning with her forehead pressed against the wall, her eyes screwed shut tight and her cascading red hair gently moving from side to side periodically as if swaying in a breeze. One of her hands was balled into a tight fist and the other was pressed to the textured concrete next to her face. It looked as if she were crying. When she turned around, she was.
“There’s nothing” she had said. A little over an hour later while Laura was sleeping through her terrible headache, GlobalAir Flight 205 broadcast a staticky, panicked message before exploding midair. Clem saw the news on television and clenched his jaw, tears springing to his eyes. Terrorists. He was relatively certain Laura would lose her license as a spotter. This would prevent her from ever being fully trusted again and at the very least she would lose her seniority. He was one-hundred percent certain Laura would lose her shit, because she was a bleeding heart and worried constantly about events just such as this. It was a wonder she wasn’t an alcoholic yet but Clem could bet she was going to be a good deal closer to it than she’d been an hour ago. He sagged shakily into a chair in the smoking lounge, took a drag off his cigarette. Courage.
He sees you, dawg