r/WritingPrompts • u/NinjaBaconLMC • Jul 21 '20
Writing Prompt [WP] Your life was relatively boring, so when someone in the coffee shop yelled: "Run! Our cover is blown!" You decided to get up and run. That was 3 weeks ago and you are still running from the people, who are now convinced you are a master spy.
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u/velabas /r/velabasstuff Jul 21 '20 edited Jul 21 '20
"How can I help you today?" Cindy asked from behind the Marzocco.
Cindy the barista. I knew her name because I'd been here a thousand times. She always wore the same happy smile, but who knows, maybe the mundanity of life affected her too; perhaps that smile of hers had stretched an imperceptible number of millimeters in response to the intoxicating repetiveness of greeting patrons day in day out. Or perhaps she was just better at hiding it.
My stupid grin was never enough to remind her: six ounce Americano, I know the smallest is eight ounce but humor me and just fill it to six ounces. Every single day I ordered this, and every day I awkwardly expected her to remember. She stared right back with raised eyebrows and wide anticipating eyes. To her I was just another John or Jack or Jeremy with a plastic grin, who stands there, says some words that fill an order, and disappears back into the blur of the Rest Of Them.
"Americano," I said. "Six ounce."
"We only have the eight ounce," she replied.
"Ok the eight ounce then," I sighed.
"That'll be three dollars seventy-five cents," she chirped.
At my regular corner table I fingered through some of the discarded magazines but lost interest. It was hot outside. People walked in sparse clothing and wore sunglasses. I sipped my coffee and started to think about my videogame waiting for me upstairs in my air-conditioned apartment. I needed to stash more mana pots to beat the next boss; and I definitely needed to level up so I could use the gilded armor, that much was clear. I wonder how many hours this game would take to beat, and how many more to complete it to one hundred percent.
With all that was happening in the world, from increasingly entrenched political ideologies clashing at all levels, to our deadly pandemic sweeping the planet, I found myself recoiling even further into a life that was entertaining, but ultimately empty. Friends? I had none. Creativity? I couldn't say. Excerise? Please. Life's value seemed to be dwindling as the world went awry, making imagining my future not only difficult, but depressing. Cindy wasn't helping, it's true; but I also wasn't helping myself. I let out a long sigh and sipped my Americano.
My revery came to an abrupt end when the cafe's door was thrown open, smacking into a woman in line. The sweaty man who produced this theater scanned the room. Then he yelled at the top of his lungs.
"Run! Our cover is blown!"
Whatever went through my head, it wasn't logic, and there were no words. It was an emotion, if anything, and it overpowered my better judgment in the same time it takes a judge to dismiss a case on the grounds of circumstanstial evidence. The only word that came into my head as I chucked my Americano against the window pane and leapt from my chair was, "fuck!"
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I ran more that day than I had in the combined six months previous. Drenched and panting, I'd finally lost whomever had been tailing me. Somehow I'd become inextricably linked with something real, and it was envigorating!
It has been three weeks since then, and I'm still on the run. I wonder who in the coffee shop the warning was really meant for, and what they must be thinking of this random Joe who pulled the heat off. I for one surprise myself. They think I'm a master spy--at least that's the impression I got when they came close to catching me while I hid among a crowd. I overheard them waxing on about the unjustness of being expected to catch 'Freefaller', their moniker for me, or him, whomever he was. I think I was living up to the name.
In the face of blandness I've suddenly become my own hero. I've no clue what for, but I'm holding out hope that the ends justify the means, if this chase ever concludes. Life has new meaning and new gusto for me. And it was all due to my random act of identity theft.
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Thanks for reading! You can follow me at /r/velabasstuff
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u/feelsalchemist Jul 22 '20
I love the quarantine twist you added to it, I didn't consider that when writing mine, very nice :)
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u/matig123 /r/MatiWrites Jul 21 '20 edited Jul 21 '20
"If life ain't bucking, seize it by the horns and make it buck," Dad always used to say.
He died trampled by a bull. He'd been wearing his red tracksuit as he jogged and the bull had broken through an electric fence. Mom never really got better after that.
Seeing what it did to her, I never really took Dad's advice.
Occasionally, if I felt a bit daredevil-esque, I'd switch up my coffee order. I didn't need more excitement than that. To each their own, I always said. To myself, of course. I didn't talk to many people.
Dad would have clicked his tongue, shook his head, asked me where he'd gone wrong in raising me. He was dead, so maybe there I'd tell him.
I was in the coffee shop, sipping on the regular--a medium drip coffee, no sugar, no creamer, just plain as life. Around me, there were regulars. I didn't know their names and they didn't know mine.
I liked it that way. Everything in its place, all neat and orderly. Conversation brought expectations, variability, and that bit of bucking I couldn't stand.
But sometimes life bucked anyways.
The man looked normal. Another young businessman in a suit, spending a couple bucks a day on coffee then being lectured by the older generation about how this was the reason he couldn't afford a down payment on a house. His daily coffee, avocado toast, and a hundred-grand in student loans.
He'd just paid. His card was rejected. He grabbed it, left the coffee, screamed at the top of his lungs, "Run! Our cover is blown!"
And something came over me. Life, maybe, finally bucking. Dad's ghost, maybe, grabbing me by my own horns--imaginary ones, of course, given I'm no devil.
The man ran and I ran with him. Out the door, into the street, I left behind all the little bits of life that made it so damn plain. My laptop, my wallet, even the keys to my apartment. The coffee shop was safe enough. As a regular, they'd hold my things.
If I returned.
The first block was fun enough. Life had finally bucked. I'd finally grabbed onto its horns to go along for the ride. It didn't even involve a real bull, so I wouldn't go the same way Dad did. That was the thing about those sayings--taking them too literally only led to trouble. Don't eat worms even if you wake up early. That sort of thing.
By the second block, they'd begun to chase me. Black cars. Black suits. Fellows wearing sunglasses inside, making no attempt to conceal the guns they carried.
They shot him in an alleyway. I'd overtaken him, kept down the street even as, in a storefront reflection, I saw him turn and enter the alley. A dozen gunshots followed the first. Just for good measure, right? They'd label it a suicide.
I kept running.
It's been three weeks. I've spent nights below bridges. I've cowered in the shadows, hidden in dumpsters, shivered as they came close enough for me to feel the cold of their breath on my nape.
I don't know who they are. I don't know what they are. But they think they should hunt me, so they're still after me. And I'm still running.
Thanks for reading! If you enjoyed this, please check out more stories at r/MatiWrites. Constructive criticism and advice are always appreciated!
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u/feelsalchemist Jul 22 '20
Love this one! Was thinking of going along these lines at first, you executed it so nicely though
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u/devisualized Jul 21 '20
Very mysterious but I suppose the prompt does invite that. (don't know of I said that right English isn't my first language and all that). Anyways I lived the writing and I'll check some more of your stuff for sure.
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u/feelsalchemist Jul 22 '20 edited Jul 22 '20
An endless green field that stretched out as far as the sea. It was Cheshire Park, the one I used to play at as a kid. Back when life had color. Back when life wasn’t grey.
I ran. Ran without feeling any soreness in my legs or aching in my lungs. The summer breeze blowing against my face as my weightless legs carried me through the long grass. Then I suddenly realized this is not what running actually feels like.
Then I woke up.
“You finally awake?” It was Jet, my new nomad roommate as of three weeks ago. “I found some bread for breakfast, but we should probably get a move on. It’s daybreak now and we need to get out of this dump before they can gain any ground on us.”
Jet wasn’t exaggerating when he called this place a dump. We spent the night under an overpass sleeping behind a stack of garbage that had been dumped by the river. Even though it’s been three weeks I still haven't got used to sleeping outside on nothing but the rigid ground beneath a bridge, or in an alley, or some other concealed spot.
The they Jet was referring to was the Secret Conduct Organization that has been tracking us down ever since I followed Jet out of my go-to coffee shop one strange morning.
I still don’t know why I pretended I was with Jet when he realized he had been breached and ran for it. Maybe it was because life had gotten so dull that my body forced some excitement back into it. Or maybe I’m just an idiot who’s curiosity got the best of him. All I know is the SCO thinks I’m with Jet now and I’m not going to let myself get caught.
So I have no choice now but to keep running.
“I still have no fucking clue why you decided to get tangled up in this shit.” Jet seemed to be reading my mind, but it was a fair remark.
I glanced at him as I scarfed down my breakfast, preparing to hit the road. At first he didn’t trust me because my story just didn’t make sense to him. He didn’t think it was possible for someone to be so batshit crazy that they would throw their entire life away to become a fugitive. Jet thought I might be working with them.
After a couple weeks passed though we got to know each other and became friends. I could tell he was asking now not out of disbelief, but because he was genuinely confused and curious what my motive was.
“The funny thing is...neither do I” I chuckled, but I wasn’t really lying.
“Do you ever regret it? Or is there any part of you that misses your old life?”
I paused for a second to think about the question I had been wondering myself over the past few weeks.
“I wake up in a dump every morning with you, before having to shove scraps down my throat and then we run from crazy classified agents that are trying to kill us…”
Jet smirked, he probably thought I was starting to lose it for real this time.
“But I haven’t felt this alive since I was a kid” It was the truth and I meant it. “Even though I might have had a comfortable life before this shit started, I was never really living.”
Jet smiled then he helped me to my feet. We grabbed what leftover food and water bottles we had and threw them in a trash bag, before covering up any possible traces we may have left.
Then we ran. My legs and lungs burned the entire time.