Wednesday, September 10, 2014

Trying to do the right thing

A door opened and a short, brunette woman with blond highlights stepped out into the bright August afternoon sun. With a sigh she raked the stray wisps of her that had escaped the neat bun at the top of her head to the side and proceeded to walk down the rickety steps at her job. She held on to the railings and when she reached ground level, sat on a bench. Glaring at the sun, she pulled out a pack of cigarettes, a lighter and a cellphone out of her purse. She lit a cigarette and took a deep drag inhaling the smoke deep into her lungs while dialing a number on her cellphone and waited for the other end to pick up. She tapped her foot against the leg of the bench and puffed away at her cigarette.

The call connected and she said in a raspy voice: " I'd like to make a payment on my account using my credit card". She listened intently chewing on her bottom lip with her lit cigarette suspended mid air in her other hand. "I don't understand. I have always payed my bill on the phone. I can't mail in a check in, I am on a payment plan and if I miss this payment I'm screwed." She listened more to the person on the other line substituting chewing her lip for short angry puffs on her cigarette. " When did this start? You sent me an email? I havent been at Washburn in nine years. I cant come in to pay by card because I work all day! By the time of I'm off work the business office is closed." Her voice grew louder and the puffs on her cigarette deeper and closer together as she spoke on the phone. 

She glanced at watch on her wrist and sighed and sighed again, " I have to go back into work, I only had a 15 minute break, thank you for nothing" she said before hanging up the call. She took one last puff from her cigarette and dropped it in an ashtray next to the bench making her way back up the stairs back to her job. 

9 comments:

  1. I bet we've all seen or been someone like this. It's a very relate-able story. Good job.

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  2. Great job, Farai! I noticed a few misplaced commas and spelling errors (e.g. I think "her" should be "hair" in the first paragraph.) I liked your choice of descriptive words to tell the story. It made me think about how I'm not always as careful as I probably should be when talking on the phone in public. You never know who could be listening!

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  3. I've seen my share of these types of moments and it always tugs my heart strings. This story is very relatable. I also really enjoy how you describe the cigarette and her biting her lip, I could see it. Love it. Little errors here and there, but thy editor will fix that :)

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  4. I think we just learned from Kaity's presentation that saying brunette woman is redundant since the definition of a brunette is a brown-haired woman. You were very descriptive and made this so easy for the reader to picture the details in their mind. Good job!

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  5. Nice story! You were very descriptive which makes for a great read. Keep up the good work.

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  6. I also enjoy the descriptive word choice. I like seeing how other described the scene with words I would have never thought would go together. Great story!

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  7. I can see this moment clearly. I liked how to changed the description of her smoking in relation to her stress level. It's very accurate.

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  8. Like others have said, your word choice is great. This was very descriptive!

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  9. I really liked the verbs you used in your story. It really made it all come alive.

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