WriteFridays 12- Getting started

I skipped a few WriteFridays challenges from Rachel's blog so yes, 12 directly follows 8. If you are lucky, 12 might even be followed by 11- I just can't make up my mind about where to go with that story... 

Anyways, today I felt inspired and had some writing time available. This is not an excerpt but rather the beginning of maybe a new story. Let me know if my little effusion makes you want to read more- feedback is always appreciated! (If not, I need to do some serious editing.)

Here's the task:

Exercise 12: Description and setting are hard – how does a writer choose what is important to the reader? How does s/he deftly direct the audience’s attention around the frame of their narrative? There are a few ways to accomplish this; here is one helpful exercise. Draft a short excerpt for a new work, or from a work in progress. Include description of your character’s setting using all of his/her senses — except sight. What does the air smell like? What does the rug feel like under bare feet? Are their birds singing? Fire sirens? What is your character’s physiological response? Get under the first layer of what things look like, and invite us in to a deeper description.

Getting started

The beer tasted stale and bitter. It was cheap, but at least it would keep him occupied and numb his nerves.

He loved to travel, but not this time. This time, he wished he could have stayed home, not face the world, not face her.

But here he was, numbing his feelings. He did not want to hear the rattling of the wheels below him, did not want to feel the hard plastic counter he leaned against, holding on to whenever there was an especially bumpy rattle. He already knew that he would hate this faint smell of old frying grease and cigarette smoke for a long time.

He would hate it because it would always remind him of the dread he was feeling. He would have to hurt her, crush her spirit, make her miserable. There was no other way, he was out of options. He needed to protect her and in order to do that, the destination of this trip was her unhappiness.

With his eyes down he hardly noticed that someone sat down next to him.

“I fuckin’ need some’un on the fuckin’ job today! Some’un that performs!” he heard the newcomer bellow into a phone.

After a quick sideways glance, his intuition kicked in and he noticed that there was something about this newcomer that was not sitting right with him.

The guy had an aura of money and power- like someone who hardly hears the word 'no'.

‘You would expect this Richie on a private jet, flaunting his riches- but definitely not here, ordering cheap beer’ he thought.

Yet, here they were- and Richie needed someone for a job- and he could use a cash injection!

So he listened more carefully to Richie’s side of the conversation. His optimism returned. Maybe, he was not out of options after all!