Member-only story
Short Story
NaNoWriMo beginnings. . . .
I had been arguing with my bags of groceries for five blocks, juggling and bouncing canned goods and bagged vegetables from hip to hip, staggering between pedestrians and other obstacles like a horse with too wide of a saddle. A cab was too much of a luxury since I lost my last job, so for the foreseeable future I would be hoofing it, like it or not. The phone in my pocket started ringing; I had to stop short of the corner and put down my load. I’d left messages at every employment agency I could think of, and the moths in my wallet knew I surely couldn’t afford not to answer.
Bingo: there was an opportunity singing into my ear as soon as I picked up. It was hardly a dream job, but pay was pay; pay was more groceries, light, heat, and water. Pay was food for my cat, and not getting evicted again.
The woman on the other end of the line had to put me on hold, and while I waited I started looking around. The city was busy, and noisy; there was lots of honking. Signs were everywhere: walk, don’t walk, park, don’t park. No loitering. (Oh well.) No left turn. The light at the corner switched to green, then red again. I was standing next to the door for one of those places that cut keys and repaired shoes; you could smell the leather and metal as customers went in and out. What else was around there. . . .
