Time To Play

Driving down Albert Road was always the problem when trying to get into the city. Being the only road that leads straight into the centre of town from the highway, you quite often get a load of tourists making a "brief stop" on their journey to stock up on all sorts of snacks and drinks. But today was just ridiculous. Fancy that; it’s my eighteenth birthday and we’re stuck in traffic so long that we could have already been in and out of town if we’d left the car at home and walked it! But my old man couldn’t possibly venture out into town without showing off all the work he’d done on his ‘65 Mustang. With a sigh of exhaustion, I slid back into the tight space between my sisters on the back seat.

On my right, Elena, my older sister, sat in a short, flowery summer dress twiddling a strand of her long, bleach blonde hair between her fingers as she stared out the window at the traffic ahead. She grimly let out a sigh as she tapped her fingers on the window to the rhythm of the music on the radio.

On my left, due to the limited amount of space on the back seat, Maria, my twin sister, was shoved up against the door cleaning her glasses with an old cloth. I watched quietly as I had a thousand times before as she meticulously wiped each lens with the tiny scrap of cloth. Once she’d finished one lens, she would move on to the other and repeat the same procedure, being just as precise and exact as before. Then, after she’d painstakingly cleaned her glasses, she’d inspect her work by holding them up to the light. She’d spend about a minute looking over them, before she put them back on and brushed a stray strand of hair behind her ear. Then she noticed me staring and gazed up at me, grinning heartily.

In the front seat, my mum, Julia, and Roy, my step father, were chatting away about how time flies and how kids grow up so fast. I could only guess this was brought on by Maria and I turning eighteen today.

After what seemed like a lifetime, we finally managed to get into town and park the car. The sun was almost blinding as I stepped out from the dark, cramped back seat of the Mustang. After we had all unloaded from the car, we all huddled together like a football team at the start of a game.

“Everyone meet back at the car at two, alright?” said Roy, giving optimistic glances around the group. “Then we’ll head back home and get ready for Todd’s barbeque”. Nobody replied. Julia put her arm around Roy and started walking up the street. Elena and Maria both waved back at me as they went over the road and turned the corner.

‘Great’ I thought as I began to wonder down the street, tracing the footsteps Roy and Julia had made moments before. ‘Another year, another couple of hours to waste as everybody goes last minute shopping’.

As my mind started to wonder, thinking about Jenny, my neighbour’s daughter, who had also recently just had her eighteenth birthday and had celebrated by going out and getting hammered on the local club circuit, I failed to notice that I had blindly walked into a construction site. I stood dumbfounded for a moment as I looked around to find out where I was, how I got there and how the hell I was supposed to get out.

As I turned to leave, there was a sudden clatter from above.

“Heads up!” shouted a voice from the scaffolding as a metal bucket slammed into my head.

'Ouch!' I thought with irony as darkness quickly swept over my eyes. I awoke with growing crowd of construction workers gathered around me.

“Jesus H. Christ pal! Are you alright?” said one of the workers holding out a hand.

“Yeah” I said rubbing my head. “I’m fine”. The construction worker looked down at the now dented bucket and smirked.

“Your head must be made of iron or something!” he laughed, helping me up. “Look at that thing! It’s barely a bucket anymore!”

All I could do was scratch my unscathed head and stare at the remains of what once was a metal bucket, its body now dented and deformed.

“I guess so” I laughed half-heartedly. “Look, I’m sorry I got in the way. I’ve got to go!”

Before anybody could speak, I quickly made for the exit.

‘That’s enough trouble for one day! Let’s try and play it safe from now on!’ I thought, quickly glancing up and down the street. ‘I wonder what the time is though’.

I brushed back the sleeve of my jacket revealing the platinum wrist watch I had received from my Uncle Jack. So far it was the only gift I had received today. It was only twelve forty seven, meaning there was still plenty of time to kill. Now all I had to do was decide on what to do!