Saturdays On Broadway, a Weekend Freewrite

The girl beside him had by now finished her pastry and was occupied in folding the bag into a neat square, smoothing out the creases with her fingers.

"There were no vegetables in this meal. I had no vegetables for breakfast. I need vegetables" so off she went to the veggie market next door. The Korean family who owned it were used to Karen by now, and they were very friendly to her. If anyone else were to act the way Karen did, they would call the cops, but not on Karen. She was sweet, but her life-long OCD tendencies would cause Karen to stand out in crowds. People generally gave her wide berth, which suited her just fine. She didn't like strangers breathing near her, their breaths would heat the air and she could feel the shift in temperature as she breathed their exhaled breaths in.

As a child Karen imagined that her doll "Becka" could breathe. Karen would carry Becka in her back pocket, facing out, as protection. Some kids wear a hat. Some kids wear a scowl. Some kids wear baggy pants. Karen wore a doll to ward off unwanted attention.

The hour was nearly up. He watched Karen carefully dispose of her perfect square of bakery paper, then brush her clothing off, first her sleeves, then her tunic front, down the thighs and front of her lower legs, then begin again at the nape of her neck and all the way down her back to the heels of her shoes. She would adjust that raggedy doll in her back pocket before finally heading out the door. This always took a full 15 minutes. He only had 45 minutes left after that.

He followed her next door to the Korean Market, where he had followed her many times before. He knew how long this part would take - 30 solid minutes of Karen's walking clockwise around the store talking to each and every display, retracing her steps shooting pictures of each and every display, and a third trip around the store thanking each and every display for "sharing your life force" with her. She would then, every single day except Saturday, buy one perfect apple, leave the store, and head home. When she left the store this Saturday, with him trailing well behind her, 45 minutes were gone. He had only 15 left. Now he hoped all that practice of the next 15 minutes would pay off. It was crunch time.

He knew that, on Saturdays and only on Saturdays, Karen left her shoes in front of the bed. He knew too that, on Saturdays and only on Saturdays, Karen took a detour through the park on her way home. He sped off to the left, in the direction of her apartment, when she took the right turn onto Broadway that she only took on Saturdays. Everything depended on his being there exactly 6 minutes before she arrived. He made his way to her building, used the key he had made himself in her building's front door, then punched in the combination to the second door he had memorized months ago, watching her from outside on the sidewalk. The elevator to 4D took two minutes, like always. He eased his way into the apartment she'd lived in since the day she was born, just like her mother before her. He took off his shoes, headed for Karen's bedroom, put a little something in her left shoe, and lay down on the bed.

"Took you long enough" Karen said when she entered her room, saw him grinningly sprawled out on her bed, and spied the little something in her shoe.

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This is my entry to @mariannewest's weekend freewrite challenge. One writes for five minutes for each of three prompts, no peeking ahead. In my entry, the prompts are in bold italics. I set the timer for 4:30 for each section, then cleaned up typos and made small adjustments for as long as I liked, a few more minutes. Thanks so much for reading! Please try writing your own!

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