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Writer
Join Date: Aug 2007
Gender: Male
Posts: 41
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Escape Route - Ch1 (Working title) Comments/criticism requested
I have a couple other chapters done as well, which I could post at some point. Just looking for some preliminary feedback here. I haven't decided if this is the whole first chapter or just the first scene of the first chapter. Either way, does this get you into it? What could be better?
Thanks
Warning: some explicit language
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Every day for the last five years Clarence has driven the the same route to the same job on the same floor of the same office building. In those five years everything around him has changed. The roads are repaved, the bosses are new, the cubicles are different. Clarence has the distinct impression that the world is passing him by. And it is. He sits idle in his five year old blue Toyota about a mile from Newdale, as traffic passes by on either side. The commute is about thirty miles. On a good day it takes forty-five minutes-- wasted minutes. An hour and a half per day. Ten and a half hours per week. Five hundred forty-six hours per year. Almost 114 whole days spent sitting in this fucking car over the last five years. Today the time is fifty-five minutes and counting. The temperature is eighty-five degrees.
Clarence's current boss is an asshole, similar to the previous boss but in a slightly more condescending way. They all have their individual quirks. This is Clarence's direct supervisor, of course. Clarence has approximately 12 bosses if you include the CEO and President. On an informal basis the number is probably greater, as anyone above him in the hierarchy exercises some influence over him. Under Clarence are three people, all of whom are good-natured-- and grossly incompetent.
Traffic is moving. Finally. Clarence hits the accelerator. On the right, a Jeep with two kayaks strapped to the roof passes. They look like rockets. It is Friday-- something to be thankful for. A swimsuit-flag flies proudly from the Jeep's antenna, as if claiming this vehicle in the name of adventure. As the kayak-propelled Jeep flies off into the distance, Clarence considers his aborted post-college plan to spend a summer alone in the Canadian wilderness. Five years ago it seemed reasonable. Now it seems insane. Still... Clarence steps knee-high into the icy water of Lake Superior and cups some water up onto his face. The water is crisp and clear, beyond refreshing. The sand works in between his toes, slightly warmed from a day of sunshine. The scene is beautiful beyond words, and the colors are so vivid they almost overwhelm the eyes-- especially the crimson red sunset. It has a beautiful glow, as if the light from hundreds of tiny LEDs had been passed through a plastic lens. Brake lights.
Clarence mutters "Shit," as his body's fight-or-flight response malfunctions under generations of decreasing evolutionary pressure. His foot finds the brake pedal and kicks the car into some very noisy and unpleasant sliding, rubber on cement. For the next one and three quarters seconds there is nothing to do but hold steady and wait. It's all about physics now.
The screeching car stops short of the approaching bumper, just in time. Just in time to get rear-ended by a maroon Golf which is, in turn, rear-ended by a white Buick. Metal and plastic make unfamiliar crunching noises as the the cars wage a kinetic three way war. There are no winners in such a war, but the clear loser is the maroon Golf. In the rear-view mirror the Golf looks a bit like a gargoyle, with displaced crunched up bumper-wings. In the driver seat a girl with straight dark hair, blue glasses, and a bloody nose looks too shocked to cry. Fifty-seven minutes and counting.
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"Have you ever gone shark diving, like in the cage?"
Emily looks incredulous. "No," she says, "have you?"
"No."
"Okay then... Interesting." Emily nods as she pushes some mashed potato clumps around her plate with her fork. "So what do you do?"
"Well, that's an interesting question. I was actually thinking about that before our little incident out there. What do I do? I work in an office. I work on part of a computer program. It's a database system. I'm in charge of the SQL interface, which is like, a language for talking to databases. Specifically, I take old bloated code and try to simplify it. Clean it up, you know?"
Emily's eyes wander the dining room.
"Anyway, whatever garbage code I take out, I usually have to put back in when one of the incompetent programmers realizes it's missing and complains up the command structure. In that way, it's sort of like digging holes and filling them back in again. How about you?"
"What do I do?" Emily looks at the potatoes, "I do a lot of things. I don't really work, like a normal job. You might say I'm a farmer."
"Family farm?"
"Not exactly. It's a collective. And no, it's not one of those fucking eco-communes with dust bucket toilets, OK, we're just a group of people who want to manage our own affairs."
"OK. I didn't know there were places like that around here."
"You live here in Newdale proper, Clarence? Are you a suburbanite?"
"I don't care for labels," Clarence pauses, "but yes."
"How is everything?" asks the waitress "Do you need anything?"
"I'll have another lemonade, thanks."
"And you ma'am?"
"Do you have tequila?" Clarence looks quizzically across the table at her.
"What? It's been a long day."
"Yes, we have tequila. 1800, Sauza, and Don Eduardo. What would you like it in?"
"In a glass. Don Eduardo."
"Ice?"
"No."
"All right then, one old-fashioned glass of Don Eduardo, no ice. Thanks."
The waitress makes her way over to the bar to put the order in.
"Drink a lot?"
"Not really. Hard to afford drinks on my salary. So, thanks."
"Well, even if I'm not 'at fault' I feel bad that your car got all smashed up. To be honest I was sort of daydreaming."
"About what?"
"Oh, nothing. Canada, lake water... nothing."
"Not shark diving?"
"Not this time."
The waitress delivers a fresh glass of lemonade and a glass of tequila with a lime wedge on the rim.
"Thanks," they say in unison.
"You know, you really shouldn't feel bad about the car. It was a junkyard frankenstein, and it will be replaced by another one as soon as we have the time. Although, I was growing a bit attached to my maroon Golf. It was diesel, you know. It had personality. Don't take this the wrong way but I actually kind of feel bad for you. You seem like a decent person, how did you end up with such a shitty life?"
"You barely know me."
"I know the type."
"Fair enough. Well, it was the summer after college. Decision time. I was preparing to live in the woods up in Canada for a summer and sort of reflect on things. That is, until I received a letter in the mail from Higher Education Finance Group. 'Mr. Clarence Lowry, Our records indicate that you are no longer enrolled as a full-time student. If you have graduated or withdrawn from college, your nine month grace period began the date of your exit. By the end of your grace period you must begin payments on your student loan. Your minimum monthly payment will be in the amount of $587. Please contact us at the numbers below if this message is in error.' So I panicked. I was paying six hundred dollars for rent and two hundred for utilities. That was a minimum fourteen hundred dollars a month, every month, for the foreseeable future. I couldn't afford to waste a summer in Canada. Asking for a deferment would have just been delaying the inevitable, all the while adding interest, so I took a job. Five years ago fifty thousand dollars a year sounded pretty good and the work was interesting. I make more money now but everything else about it is worse. Even the coffee doesn't taste right anymore. My boss is an idiot. My employees are incompetent, my job is essentially meaningless and at the moment my job is just about all I have going on, so connect the dots."
Emily sips some tequila. "You know what Clarence? You're in some pretty deep shit here, but I think I can help."
"How?"
"The first thing you need to do is quit your job."
Clarence laughs, almost spitting lemonade.
"I'm serious. You're like a shell of a person. You're a shadow. I can barely see you Clarence!"
"All right, stop it, you're freaking me out."
"Does fear inspire you?"
"Not that I'm aware of."
"Put that on your list of problems."
Emily sips some more tequila. The glass is half empty. Clarence looks into the distance at the neon bar lights and then back to Emily.
"What about you, wandering around with no job, living in a commune, bumming drinks from strangers, you're hardly in a position to criticize me."
"Are you happy?"
"Sometimes... No."
"Well, I am. You should walk a mile in my shoes."
Clarence leans over to look under the table at Emily's shoes. They are leather moccasins. They look hand-made.
"Maybe."
"You think about it, Clarence. Think about it next time you're in that cubicle of yours digging holes. Do you believe in heaven?"
"Not really."
"Good. Then quit fucking around. You only get one chance." Emily throws back the rest of her tequila and slams the glass on the table. "Now, how about that ride?"
"Check please."
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Clarence crosses, somewhere, from the rural outskirts of Newdale back into the residential streets of Newdale proper. He tastes tequila and strawberry lip gloss on his lips where Emily kissed him, unexpectedly, goodnight. Their ride to the collective was mostly quiet and a little awkward. When they arrived she said "Don't forget, quit your job," and kissed him full on the mouth. Clarence licks his lips and flips on the radio. It's the overnight on the college station. The DJ has a thing for bossa nova and tonight's playlist reflects that. Streetlights streak across Clarence's vision like an extended exposure photograph. His eyes are glazing, like they do on late nights. He is smitten. Not just with Emily but with everything she represents-- living free. As Clarence turns onto his block of Winston Avenue the radio, in its tinny late-night way, plays, "Interest I find in you inside my dream. You wear blue glasses in your heart. How can I see the world like you do?" This is a new one.
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