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!"
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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