Daydreams in the dirt
I labor during the day in the construction industry digging ditches with an oversized machine. Dad always said that if I didn't get an education I'd wind up digging ditches. Wow, was he right.
Today I got a break from the normal stress of precise grading plans and sloping depths. Normally I operate a trenching machine. Today someone else operated the dang thing, and I operated a grading tractor pulling the spoils left behind by the machine off of the pad. Of all the jobs in the company, "pulling dirt" is the function that requires the least amount of brain activity.
Hence, the allowance for daydreaming.
A small town came to my mind. My mind's eye witnessed the town's business district extending along a single road from one offramp to the next. Darkness blanketed the street. Candlelight flickered yellow and orange inside windows along the roadway.
Dusk’s growing darkness, save for the candlelit windows spread across the town. The orange glow of a cigarette, hanging in mid-air like a mid-summer firefly, rose and dropped beneath a car-port on the right.
In the distance, from the other off ramp of the freeway, approached a car. The blue halogen headlights lit up the street. The silouhette of the figure holding the cigarette off to the right became more defined in the dim murky light. He held something in his other hand. Something long. Mysterious. The object in his other hand resembled a rifle.
The oncoming car stopped fifty yards away. A young man stepped out, put his hands in the air. A lip ring glinted. His mouth was moving. He was saying something.
The orange cherry of the smoldering cigarette on the right dropped to the ground. The man in the shadows placed his foot upon the orange glow, snuffing out the burn.
The white spire of a church poked over the canopy of trees in the distance, impaling the underside of the rising moon. The lunar light revealed more people hiding along the buildings along the dark street, standing in doorways with one foot on the step and one remaining inside. Their candles flickered behind them. The people in the doorways were curious, like when someone comes across a fatal accident on the freeway. Nobody really wanted to see anything horrible happen, but they looked on anyway, just in case some blood was spilled. No one talks about it. They just want to see it.
And the man with the rifle stepped out of the shadows, approaching the young man in the street.
The onlookers heard a clicking noise.
Today I got a break from the normal stress of precise grading plans and sloping depths. Normally I operate a trenching machine. Today someone else operated the dang thing, and I operated a grading tractor pulling the spoils left behind by the machine off of the pad. Of all the jobs in the company, "pulling dirt" is the function that requires the least amount of brain activity.
Hence, the allowance for daydreaming.
A small town came to my mind. My mind's eye witnessed the town's business district extending along a single road from one offramp to the next. Darkness blanketed the street. Candlelight flickered yellow and orange inside windows along the roadway.
Dusk’s growing darkness, save for the candlelit windows spread across the town. The orange glow of a cigarette, hanging in mid-air like a mid-summer firefly, rose and dropped beneath a car-port on the right.
In the distance, from the other off ramp of the freeway, approached a car. The blue halogen headlights lit up the street. The silouhette of the figure holding the cigarette off to the right became more defined in the dim murky light. He held something in his other hand. Something long. Mysterious. The object in his other hand resembled a rifle.
The oncoming car stopped fifty yards away. A young man stepped out, put his hands in the air. A lip ring glinted. His mouth was moving. He was saying something.
The orange cherry of the smoldering cigarette on the right dropped to the ground. The man in the shadows placed his foot upon the orange glow, snuffing out the burn.
The white spire of a church poked over the canopy of trees in the distance, impaling the underside of the rising moon. The lunar light revealed more people hiding along the buildings along the dark street, standing in doorways with one foot on the step and one remaining inside. Their candles flickered behind them. The people in the doorways were curious, like when someone comes across a fatal accident on the freeway. Nobody really wanted to see anything horrible happen, but they looked on anyway, just in case some blood was spilled. No one talks about it. They just want to see it.
And the man with the rifle stepped out of the shadows, approaching the young man in the street.
The onlookers heard a clicking noise.
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