Been awhile since I posted any creative writing...

Hey all, your day might be boring, but here's a story I wrote. I decided to upload it because why the fuck not. I hope you find meaning in it and I want to know what you think. WARNING: May be upsetting to the average reader.

Verde Blues

There was absolutely nothing significant, odd, or surprising about today in Verde, California, perhaps the most average urban area in the United States. A Verde resident, Aaron Miles III, pulled into the Spinners coffee shop’s drive-thru with his used sedan. It was a little place on the corner of the Verde strip mall closest to the main artery of the urban respiratory system, Bahn Boulevard.


“Hi-- I need a coffee. Like, an espresso.” This was the third time Aaron had spoken for the whole seven-hour morning, only five of which were spent sleeping. His eyelids had hardly adjusted to the foggy skies that hung low over Verde. He felt the pressure of college-entry standardized testing and honors classes. He felt the pressure of Aaron Miles II and Aaron Miles I, revered university alumni and entrepreneurs. They expected nothing less of him.



“Sure, what flavor?” asked Amanda Delgado, the minimum wage clerk behind the drive-thru. Aaron gazed at her with his pouty lower lip hanging out. He attempted cognition.



“We have cara--”



“Caramel. That’ll be fine.” He was already rifling through his leather wallet for his debit card. He had neither cash nor a credit card. But she will be fine with that, he thought.



“Okay. Anything else?” Amanda was not surprised by his attitude. He was demanding, much like most of the drive-thru customers. The indoor customers were calmer. It didn’t take Amanda more than a week on a part-time basis to notice this.


“...No. That’ll be all.”


“Three dollars.” She could have said “two-ninety-nine” and yakked on about Aaron’s penny change and the receipt, but that was not how Spinners rolled. Spinners knew its customers. Amanda, having developed the muscle-memory for the clerk’s punchpad, focused on Aaron. What did stand out was his youth. He’s had his driver’s license for maybe half a year, she thought. And yet, he gelled up his hair and wore a navy polo shirt and a stainless steel watch on his outstretched hand with the card. She envied him, and she assumed he had it better. She was paying for $40,000 in college loans. Amanda took his card and swiped it through the scanner, though the scanner spat at her with an error message.


Amanda was different from Aaron, yet the same as him. Two parents who came to America without a college education pushed her onward, for the great promise of college and career was, without exception, worth the cost. Her parents, of course, had assumed that she would major in computer science and she would go to some spark-of-brilliance tech company whose stocks went public and through the roof.


Amanda turned to Aaron, who furrowed his brow with his hand still out. Amanda suspected a debit card. Nobody with even the look of Aaron’s age had the liberty to buy time with plastic loans under the assumption that they could pay them off later. One day, Aaron would have that liberty. Aaron wasn’t a heavy spender anyway. He wasn’t a sucker for the mall on the weekends; he spent said weekends locked in his office for hours studying history and reading existential space opera to reinvigorate his soul.


“Is this debit or credit?”


“Debit. What’s wrong?”


“Well… our payment policy changed over the weekend. We no longer take debit.”


“Are you kidding me? I don’t have anything else.”


“I’m sorry sir, I’m afraid I can’t process this transaction.” In response, Aaron paused with a loathsome, “is-this-really-happening-right-now” face.


“And there’s nothing anywhere in the parking lot that says this?”


“Actually, there is a sign by the edge of the drive-thru.”


Aaron rolled his eyes and accelerated out of the drive-thru. The revving of the engine spoke for him. He leaned out the driver side window. Sure enough, a sign was tacked to the side of the front entrance. Aaron cursed and prepared to take a right turn out of the lot.


Aaron had to be at Pinnacle Preparatory Academy ten minutes after he was supposed to pick up a coffee. If he could’ve milked another few minutes out of cutting corners and cutting off people with off-days and whatnot, he would’ve. Then he would’ve got a cold pastry and ate it with vigor. But today was not that day, for he woke up late.


Aaron drove tensely in the middle lane down Bahn Boulevard’s main stretch. He had to make a left after the next three lights. Aaron looked to his left to notice a truck passing him. There was nothing special about it besides the fact that there were two hamster cages rattling in the truck bed. They were empty, save the hamster wheels that shook with the rhythm of the cages themselves. Aaron shook his head. Nothing special, he thought bitterly. Same day as yesterday and the day before... without coffee.


Aaron came to the last stop before he had to turn. While he waited, traffic from the previous stoplight boxed him in. He glanced at his watch, too. The light turned green after a minute. Aaron passed through the intersection, turned on his turn signal, and began to shift over. The thought to check his mirrors, let alone his blind spot, never happened. Then where was his cognitive energy? The ramen he fixed at eleven last night didn’t do good for him. Even after he spent five hours finishing two papers, he still had to wake his dreary self with his watch alarm at six each morning so he could make Pinnacle Prep’s mandatory zero period by 7:15. Red fissures had formed in the corners of his greenish eyes like they had reached a breaking point. No student at Pinnacle Prep could blame him.


Glass shattered and horns screamed.


The authorities said that there were two fatalities. That wasn’t unusual in Verde. The authorities said two cracked hamster cages and two wheels were found at the scene. The cages were scattered. Also present were two corresponding hamster wheels. Their cylinders had unhinged from their bases and stopped rolling.

 

Could you explain the ending? I don't fully understand it

 

Spoiler: dont read unless you really dont understand it i dont like ruining it for people

Aaron died because he overworked himself due to pressure and was therefore in no position to drive so he crashed

 

Oh, I got that part. I thought the hamster wheels were of some significance for some reason :P

 

They are supposed to be.

Spoiler: purpose

I tried to emphasize them as a symbol of cyclical, daily routine.

 

Thank you