Ledman Pickup

Nine

At five in the morning, Zoey was less than a hundred miles from Wetford and keeping up her steady pace. She had managed to sail through several hours of uninterrupted replay, making significant progress toward her completion of The Day. The night was like a mere backdrop to the drama unfolding in her mind. Every other car on the road roared past her without her really noticing. It was none of her concern. She had kept the cruise control at fifty and the highway was straight as a rod for dozens of miles on end. It drifted into her consciousness that eternity might feel like this, and that she wouldn't mind at all if it did.

The unanticipated stretch of uninterrupted think-time had unexpectedly come in handy. The Day, she had already determined, must begin with a clean slate. As a tester she knew that pre-conditions must include a known initial state. Each test must setup and tear down everything in its environment. So too The Day begins without any waxy buildup left over from previous days. That meant a thorough scrubbing and sorting. There would be no dirty dishes, no unmade beds, no laundry needing to be washed. A day that did not begin with these conditions was not, and could not be, The Day, by definition.

The Day begins with a proper ramping up, preparing and fueling the engine. Typically this included bathing, brushing teeth and breakfast, all of that sort of thing. In Zoey's Day, those activities occupied a set amount of time. Their schedule had not changed since her initial forays into Daily Planning. She had also added certain types of thinking to those times. It was appropriate to consider news items, for example, during breakfast. It was not allowed to think of them in the shower. There is a time and place for everything, after all. At one time she had permitted herself to giggle at the notion that, if to everything there is a season (as the Bible says), than to everything there are forbidden seasons as well. At the brushing of the teeth, decisions can be made about apparel.

The Day's morning continued with a plan. Each day should have its own plan and not rely on a previous day's tasks. Nor should The Day's plan be considered on any other day but The Day itself. Planning began during the breakfast cleanup routine, while washing dishes and putting them away. The plan, in order to be highly effective (as she had once read somewhere), had to start with the end in mind. First things first, in this case, meant Last Things First. What was the purpose of The Day? What was the Expected Result? It could be many things. It could mean, professionally, a certain number of test cases defined, or executed, or revisited, or documented. It could mean a new task altogether. If she had no project, it could mean scouting for one. These were principles. The actual The Day which lived in her mind remained curiously open to change. She had left herself some breathing room. Before and After Work were fairly rigidly defined, but the Work portion of The Day itself was allowed to vary. In this way, she hoped the project would not get stale.

It entertained her enough. The drive held steady and the first rays of dawn began to appear above the highway. She told herself that this day could not be The Day. Her routine was shot. Here she was driving across three states and staying up all night. There was a lot of waxy buildup going on! She would not shower as usual, nor groom as usual, nor breakfast as usual - nothing would be usual about this day. Approaching her destination she had to make decisions. Should she turn off first at Spring Hill Lake and scout for a coffee shop, or stay on the road and wait until Wetford a little further on down the road? Should she go directly to Ledman Storage and Pickup, or wait until later in the morning? She had forgotten their hours. Suddenly nothing was making sense. Her mind had enjoyed the long drive but her body was giving out, and having its effect throughout. She began to notice that she was becoming incapable of rational thought. Everything began to seem difficult. The exit signs posted notices of restaurants and gas and probably she and her car both needed these. It was hard to decide.

She was too groggy to make proper choices. She noted that the tank was not yet empty and decided to drive straight there. Her map-voice told her what to do and she obeyed, paying no attention to the scenery, such as it was. Wetford, dreary year-round, held nothing of interest to see. It was a city such as cities had become in that time; predictable, laconic, expanding without a plan and leaving the old stuff behind to fend for itself. It was residential here, commercial there, strip malls where you'd expect them, high rises too. It might have appeared straight out of a failing urban design student's half-assed diorama of anytown, anywhere. The train tracks rode along the riverbank and it was here, among the other decaying remnants of a formerly industrial lifestyle, that Ledman Storage and Pickup held its ground. A tall brick structure sporting all blown out windows, it had a parking lot with well-faded stripes and a loading dock feauturing a corrugated ramp. 

Zoey pulled into the lot close to the lime green door with its old worn-out sign that must have said something at one time but was no longer legible. She climbed out of the car and walked over the gravel toward it. The door was closed, and locked. There were no other cars around, and no other people in sight. It was seven in the morning and for a few moments she just stood there, wondering what she should do. Thoughts scattered through her sleepy head. Coffee would be a good idea. Something to eat, but now that she was there, she didn't want to get lost or take any chances. She glanced around, half-hoping to see something tempting that might change her mind, but there was nothing in sight but other buildings similarly situated, rotting and forlorn. An abandoned railway station. A half-torn-down steel-girded armory. A shack with a sign declaring "Gary's Plastic Place.” Here she was, so here she'd stay, at least until someone, anyone showed up. And that, she concluded, was that. She returned to her car, sat down behind the wheel, and tried very hard to stay awake.