[WP] You are in the middle class. You live a mediocre life, have a boring office job, but it gets you enough money to have a roof over your head.

...

Driving into work, Robert typically listened to music. He had seven stations Favorited on his old car stereo, as well a a single CD that his niece made him on her eleventh birthday. He liked it quite a bit, though he'd long since grown tired of the spice girls; even if they were rather pretty.

He did know all the words though, should he be pressed on the subject as he had been in the past on several occasions.

Typically, while listening to either the radio or the CD, his morning commute took around thirty minutes if he left the house after 08:00 AM, and only twenty minutes if he was quick enough to make it out the door by 07:45 AM. This was the case, he reasoned, because by leaving slightly earlier he dodged both the stop-light timings adjustment as well as a majority of morning rush coming in from the main roads and the cities. On one unfortunate Thursday, he'd left before 05:45 to catch an early client meeting, and his commute had only taken him fifteen minutes, but he widely considered leaving that early a very impractical waste of his time. What would someone come in early for, if they still weren't allowed to leave until 5:30 PM?

There was little in the way of motivation for such a subject.

This morning though, it seemed his CD player refused to cooperate- as if often seemed to do in winter. It also seemed that the radio was surprisingly absent of music. Instead it was all news, emergency broadcasts, and serious voices talking over one another with varying opinions on subjects Robert truly didn't care for.

He would much prefer music, even if some of it was the spice girls.

Traffic was terrible this morning too, smog and exhaust lofting up over blaring horns on the traffic-bound double lane east towards the small city in which Robert now worked. He'd been due for a raise, three years coming now, and though he doubted he'd ever get it, Robert did try his best to act the part.

"Dress for the job you want, not the job you have" His mother had always told him. Well, it had worked quite well for his Brother, though not as well as might be expected for Robert, he wasn't one to give up simply because he'd failed to achieve the ideal version of success. His mother had also stressed "Persistence is a virtue" so he figured he'd stick to that as well.

"The sightings have caused large disturbances in the urban population centers, and though the Government is currently reacting, the National Guard has not yet been dispatched to-"

Robert shut the radio off with a sigh. Music would have been much preferable to the droning voices of people talking of far off and non-important things. He had other topics of concern on his mind.

His Brother and niece, for instance. He'd planned on meeting at their house for dinner this evening, but if he came in late, it was more than likely he would have to stay late as well- another odd rule he found rather unfair in the grander scheme of things, considering he often made it in early and stayed to the typical 5:30 PM without complaint. If he was late today, which by the look of traffic and the honking horns, it seemed very likely, he might not get there on time.

His brother owned a house in a nice neighborhood right above the bridges, river traffic often making a thick and mechanical blockage for any unfortunate soul trying to head north between the hours of 6:00 and 7:00 PM.

Glancing ahead, Robert eyed the clouds with a pensive wrinkle of his brow. Indeed, the coverage did seem strange today: Almost like a checkerboard grid, blue and gray mingling rather oddly there in the sky. He was sure if he had the time, he could look up the exact details with a quick search on the internet, but Robert didn't like to take out his phone when driving. His Brother's wife had passed away after a traffic accident, and more out of respect of that then anything else, Robert was inclined towards safety and personal diligence on the road.

She had been a very nice woman, and it had been a very hard loss on everyone. Even reaching towards the device beside his pocket was enough to make Robert feel rather sad. Five years in two months, and he still wasn't quite sure if things would ever be normal again. He'd never been married, but after watching what his brother had gone through, Robert wondered if he ever could.

Traffic settled to a complete stop, this time with an aura of finality in some way, prompting Robert to glance over at his passenger seat, filled and buckled in safely. The backpack rested as secured as a backpack would ever truly hope to be in his small car, not heavy enough to trigger the air-bag light, but still fastened rather tightly to the cloth seat.

It was an odd mix of things there. His mother's secret recipe: Green-bean casserole, intended to be place in the office kitchen refrigerator until the end of his shift, a water bottle and some minor odds and ends that piled into the bag throughout the weeks and months of use- perhaps more than a fair number of pens and loose notes and pages crumbled beneath a grocery-bag filled with clean gym clothes he'd optimistically packed into the front section not even three days ago.

He'd made it his goal to run five miles a week, and he'd been making rather decent efforts at it, though he'd often found himself running down his neighborhood street at 8:00 PM on Sunday evenings due to forgetfulness. From a personal perspective, Robert thought he was making real progress regardless of his mediocre discipline.

Most important of all though, packed inside the bag was a perfectly wrapped cube of immaculate gift-paper. Happy penguin paper to be more precise, complete with smiling beaks and cartoon eyes, taped and folded to perfect measurement along the contents of a sealed cardboard box housing a necklace and a pair of earrings.

Apparently these were perceived as very important gifts for a young lady now turning sixteen, and Robert had taken great care to plan ahead with his brother in making sure that he picked out the correct ones (although he might admit that neither of them were particularly well-versed on this subject.) Robert had it on high-authority though, that Penguins were her favorite animal. Regardless of her thoughts on the gift itself, the wrapping-paper would perhaps redeem him slightly.

But, looking up from his thoughts, Robert found that Traffic still hadn't moved.

wercwercwerc 30 points 3 years ago*