This is my seventeenth post for the Indie Ink Writing Challenge. My prompt this week comes from Mare again! She challenged me a few weeks ago too! She gives great challenges Her prompt will be at the end.
I gave the prompt - midnight tea - to Tara. Go check out her incredible response!
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It was a dark and stormy night. Well, that's not true. It was daytime.
It was the coldest day of the year, and snow was falling. Just kidding. It was summertime. In Florida.
It was a nice morning. Yes, yes. This was true. Except -- it was actually a particularly beautiful morning. When he drove to work, the sun was shining, and beautiful puffy cumulus clouds had decorated the Carolina blue sky. He was given a free latte at his usual coffee shop because the barista had made the wrong drink for the customer in front of him. There was even an extra shot. Just as he liked. Traffic moved just right for him. He didn’t have to stop at any stop lights. Not one. In fact, his morning was going so well that he took it as a sign that he was going to have a good day.
But later, as he was walking to an afternoon meeting, he looked up at the sky and saw one black cumulonimbus cloud above him. It was the only dark cloud he could see. The clouds surrounding the lone, dark cloud were white and fluffy, just as the others had been that morning. He remembered that he had forgotten his umbrella, and then seconds later, that cloud gave out. Rain started pouring out of that one dark cloud over him -- that one lone, black cloud in the sky. He was quickly drenched. His white shirt had become see-through. His light pants stuck against him as though they were painted on. His glasses were so wet and foggy from the humidity that he couldn’t see a thing as he walked into the building. His shoes squeaked on the freshly waxed floor as he made his way toward the meeting room.
He still had to go to this meeting. He had been told it was a meeting he could absolutely not miss. It was a very important meeting with some very important people. It turns out that it would be a meeting where he would receive some very important information from the very important people. It turns out it was the kind of meeting he would go to where he would learn that his job was ending. That the company could no longer afford to pay him.
He left the meeting and drove home in the pouring rain to tell his wife the bad news. He needed to be reassured that everything would be okay. For once, he needed his wife to console him instead of him always consoling her. For once, he needed her to tell him that everything was going to be okay.
When he got home, he found a note instead of his wife. The note said that she was so sorry. That she needed out of their marriage. That the relationship wasn’t working. That she made a mistake marrying him nine months prior. That their marriage didn’t feel right. And that he please not contact her. That she wouldn't change her mind.
He called for the dog. The dog didn’t come. She had taken him with her.
He checked their banking account. She had taken the $7,130 he had earned and had left him $1.16.
Life as he knew and loved it had become a big question mark. His stability had suddenly become unstable. His life had changed in an instant. All during one afternoon thunderstorm.
Unsure of what to do, he opened a bottle of his favorite wine. One he and his wife had been saving for a special occasion. Something his wife had not taken with her when she left. He poured a glass for himself, and he walked out to the porch. He looked up at the sky and saw that the beautiful puffy cumulus clouds had returned and that the sky was the same Carolina blue color from his perfect morning.
Never missing out an opportunity to make a toast, he lifted his glass up to the sky and said Cheers. That he had no idea what would happen next. But that he knew there would at least be good wine.
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Use the line, "It was a dark and stormy night."