Assignment 21 - Ella Franklin

Someone's up somewhere really high. In a tall building. On the balcony of a 54th story penthouse. In an airplane. I'm picturing the scene in Forest Gump where Jenny is about to jump off the balcony of a building, and that song is playing. Free Bird. Lynyrd Skynyrd. That might be happening to someone right now. I hope not, but it might be. I'm just saying that because it's night time, and night time gives you that kind of feeling. On the edge.

Honestly, let's just face the sad truth of it. Sure, somewhere someone just met their future spouse, and maybe someone just died in a car wreck, or maybe someone just got married. But honestly, someone is just getting off their 5-9 shift. Yeah, 5-9 because that is the new 9-5 and it has been since 2014. And they are so relieved to finally get off their shift. And now they can go home, and be who they really are. Or maybe see someone they love. Or maybe think about seeing someone they love. Or maybe they had a song stuck in their mind the whole shift, and they just got in the car and they are going to play that song the whole way home. I'm picturing a guy, so I can start using masculine pronouns. He's listening to some song that was running through his head the whole damn shift. It's the Grateful Dead. But deep cut Grateful Dead, no "Casey Jones." He has an old car, like late nineties, so he doesn't have a regular aux. He has one of those cassette-for-aux deals. But that's in style now so it's cool but he doesn't realize that, not that it would matter much to him. He drives some random old crusty car, like a Volvo or something. I wish I could say he drives a Cadillac and then that "Deadhead sticker on a Cadillac" line from that Don Henley song would work, but he doesn't own a Cadillac at all.

His house is about 10 minutes away from work. It's an apartment that he shares with one of his buddies. It's messy. It smells like burnt ramen. There are empty milk cartons on the counter. Maybe a box of Cheez-Its that are stale from not being closed properly sitting on top of the fridge.

I'm having trouble figuring out what he does once he gets home. I imagine his roommate is probably just sitting gone the couch watching Barstool Sports or something but he doesn't really feel like hanging out with him too much. He usually doesn't. So instead he just goes to sleep.