A Little Scenario Created In The Early Morning

I woke up today with the intention of writing a blog. I had no idea, when I sat down in front of my computer, what I would write. I just knew I would. I started with a name, a woman’s name, and what followed, “just like that”, is below.

Constance was tired. She had dealt for thirteen days with Jack’s bewildering behavior. She’d been counting. After day four, she had begun counting and for her to keep track was a new phenomenon in itself. Constance had never felt the need to monitor much of anything, especially her teenage son, Jack, who always had been a model son – polite and present. The two had been a pair, especially after the baffling disappearance of Jack’s father when Jack was only three. Out of the blue, however, in recent days, something had changed.

“It will be two weeks tomorrow,” she thought. “Guess I’ll have to have a word, if I can get his attention that is.”

Jack worked days, stacking cartons of supplies in the storage area behind Cotton’s Hardware Store. When he was home he locked his bedroom door and played music that ranged from hardcore rap to soulful country ballads. He took long showers. When he finally did make an appearance for a bite to eat in the kitchen, he was solemn and unusually quiet, grunting a greeting if Constance were lucky and then bowing his head to stare and text into his iPhone for long minutes.

“Going out,” he’d mutter finally.

“Where?” she’d ask.

“Just around,” he’d answer, a smirk playing on his lips.

He had been staying out late, slipping in through the back gate in the middle of the night, never quite making it into the house, but instead tossing himself onto the thick cushion of the chaise lounge to sleep or stare into the night. Constance had watched silently from her secret vantage point behind the curtain of her bedroom window. Her instincts made her want to cover him with a blanket or two, but he was sixteen, the nights remained warm in the Sierra foothills in August, and he clearly was pulling away.

Constance’s heart fluttered with an alien loss she could not have articulated had she tried. This was new and it hurt. What was happening to her son, and to her?

So, this is where the intention ended. I’ll figure out what’s happening to the two at a later date.