Me and my work-partner, Marv, were walking through these old trenches. It was clearly obvious that they might've been an artifact due to the wooden crates with their worn-out dates and rotting wood, as well as the amount of cloth we found buried in rubble all around the place. Our first assumption about what we were looking at might've been something from one of the World Wars, but there was not much to back it up with.
I continued to search through the place with my beaming flashlight, but I haven't found anything of concern. We were looking for things like weapons, bombs, and other dangerous things. A client described that they had found an open grenade near their house, and not too far away from that were these trenches.
"Nolan," said Marv from behind me, "take a look at this." He was in another section, but he remained close enough that I could hear him. As I fixed my coat, I trudged backwards and returned to the area I thought I had scanned already, but he was holding a piece of filthy cloth that covered a crate; Behind it was a date. December 9th, 1... The rest of the writing had been smudged. It didn't appear to be disturbed, though; I believe rain had washed away the ink. I squatted down and ran my fingers across the engravings, trying to figure out the date, and I concluded this was a crate from the 1900's.
"Neat." I commented, standing back up. "D'you think there's anything inside?"
"Something dead. It reeks." He pushed down into the rotting wood. I shrugged it off and looked for a way to climb out of here since it felt like we've explored enough within these trenches, plus the smell was truly starting to bother me now at this point. As me and Marv climbed out of the trenches, we searched for my van through the thick fog. Unfortunately, I lost him without realizing it. The more we walked,
"Marv?" I called out.
There was no response. I called out again, "Marv!?" but there was no luck. The anxiety rushed deep into my core because anything could've happened to him. When I continued to look for him, the engine of a vehicle began running, and behind me were these bright, warm lights. Immediately I turned my back and saw the headlights, and they appeared to be getting closer to me, so I did what any person would do and moved out of the way. It was my van, and Marv was driving it.
Marv pulled down the window and laughed. "You thought I was going to hit you, didn't you?"
"Don't do that shit." I scoffed, walking over to my van and opening the door that introduced the driver's seat. "Out of my seat, cmon."
"M'alrighttt..." Marv continued to chuckle as he slipped out of my seat and walked around to sit in the passenger seat. I entered my car and slowly began to drive off, careful not to drive into anyone or anything because it was near impossible to see the distance. We made it onto the road after five minutes, but I received a phone call. My phone chimed loudly, and Marv handed me my cell phone.
"Nathan..." Marv peaked over at my vibrating phone. "Who's that?"
"That would be my boss." My eyes stayed focused on the road as I answered the phone call. "Hello?"
"Mr. Crowley, we need you in the studio. We have things to do, and you haven't shown up yet!" Nathan said it with a bit of enthusiasm in his voice. He had a slight passion for his overwhelming job.
"I'm sorry, but I can't come in today. I'm in a completely different state!"
"What—why are you in another state?"
"I told you I was on vacation right now and not only that, but I have two different jobs; I can't show up in time. You'll have to get someone to cover for me today. I'm on the car ride home right now, and it's going to take a few hours or even days."
"But you know you're our best man. Everyone loves you—why be out now?"
"I told you before I was out. Just give me less than three days, and I'll be back in no time. I must hang up now." But, before I could finish off my sentence, I was cut off.
"Can't you just get here by plane!?" Nathan interrupted.
"What!? No! Of course not. Let's talk about this when I am not driving!!" Just like that, I hung up on him. I was well aware that Nathan wasn't going to be very happy about that, but while I'm driving through solid fog, I think it's very appropriate. It's for our safety. I sighed and slid my phone into the cup holder. I didn't favor my manager due to the way he acted sometimes. Things weren't better for him nonetheless; I believe it might've been because he worked several other jobs and rarely got sleep at night, but I'm not responsible for his schedule.
"What was that about?" Marv chuckled.
"Well, he wants me to somehow go back to Nevada today, but that's not at all viable. He even suggested that I arrive on a plane, but I don't have the money for that right now." I scoffed. Marv's grin wouldn't fade. He was one of the people I knew took Nathan as some sort of joke, even when he's on the screen of the TV for the daily news.
"Is he crazy?"
"He's the erratic type." I fixed my glasses. Despite the fact that I told Nathan it would take me about three days to return to Nevada, it ended up taking about three days extra. I was aware that he was going to be very unhappy about my absence, but I was also aware that I had already told him about this beforehand. As I relaxed in my own home for as little as an hour after returning, I thought about the city.
I heard that a new bakery had opened just around the corner of the building I worked in when it came to our broadcasts and I was a bit interested in what kind of baked goods were there. I knew there would be the basics like chocolate chip muffins or even a birthday cake, but I've heard very positive things about the bakery. Even the name of the bakery was quite unique: "Inventive Confections". From what I have been told, there's only one baker in that entire bakery holding up everything, which is usually very unlikely for a business but I'd see it and believe it. I crossed my leg over the other in my rocking chair and stared right at the blank TV screen that hung above my fireplace. I had some many things I could be doing right now, yet there was nothing I wanted to do. I could've been going through my emails right now or I could've ran some of my needed errands, but today was just one of those days, as corny as that may be. I haven't seen the sun since yesterday afternoon and it's been believed to rain but the rain hasn't arrived yet. Everything feels like it's been moving more slowly than usual. It makes me wonder if I'm putting my life to use or am I taking a break like my ex-wife always begged me to take. A break.
