Written for The Unicorn Challenge where we are
asked to get creative in 250 words or less using
the photo below as inspiration. Here is my story.
“Hm, what’s this?” I asked myself, cycling up to an abandoned car … a bit of excitement in my otherwise dull existence.
It struck me as odd that the car appeared to have been deliberately driven to the side of the road, the engine turned off while, in sharp contrast, the door had been hastily left open. The key was in the ignition, the constant reminder of “ding-ding-ding-ding” shattering the stillness.
Instinctively, I yanked out the key, pocketing it. I exhaled, savoring the calmness. Looking around, there wasn’t a living thing in sight, but two trash bins implied the presence of civilization.
I stood at the silent intersection, the roads reaching out to the horizon. The only change in landscape was a mound strewn with tree cuttings. I decided to scope out the area to see what was about, but my exploration yielded nothing. The car and I stood idle.
Shrugging my shoulders, I began walking back to my bicycle when an indistinct sound penetrated the air – a muffled voice coming from the mound.
With renewed vigor, I ran up the rise, stopping abruptly at the sight below – a traveling circus being dismantled. It was then I noticed a silver-haired man giddily leaping toward the carny folk, waving and shouting “wait for me!”
Before I knew what was happening, I was bounding after the man, yelling for him to “take me along, too!” He motioned for me to “c’mon!”
At some point the car key fell out of my pocket, no longer needed.
NAR©2024
250 Words
This is “Goodbye Cruel World” by James Darren
And for a bit of culture …. from the musical “Stop the World – I Want to Get Off”, this is the incomparable Anthony Newley with “What Kind of Fool Am I?”
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