black history/futures: a mile

it's feb! that means it's black history/futures month. my goal in 2024 is one flash fiction story per week. all stories from this month and past years here.

preface: i wrote this story and one more last month during feb but have been slow on adding them to the blog. oops.

my ymca locker neighbor was a very sweet, old man but his lack of eyesight did mean we ended up in some very hilarious situations. last week, i mistakenly put both of our combo locks on the bench while we were packing up. of course, he grabbed mine (because why would there be more than one lock on the bench?), locked up, and headed out. i spent the next 30 minutes trying to convince the front desk workers that i really wasn’t trying to steal his things.

today, it was our shoes (though of course, i didn’t know that at first…). one of the first things i’d noted to him all those years ago when we first met was that we both wore brooks sneakers. mine were gray, blue, and red; his, too.

as i reached down to tie the second shoe, i started to feel a little uneasy. and, shit, was this an earthquake? does the floor during earthquakes vibrate like this? does cambridge even have earthquakes…? and why is everything going dark?!??!…

words / writing / post-processing
148w / 10min / 2min