The author makes no guarantees as to completing the serial.
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08 Ties of Time
The phone and Whatsit chip joined the residues of a different time.The plastic containers holding the reminders of her life now held the reminder of another's life.
Outside, along the slim walkway, she sorted through her harvests of driftwood. Tangled heaps in varying states: wet, drying and dried, inversely mimicking her hopes: today, tomorrow and the next.
Selecting pieces of the dried wood, she tied them into a bundle using a worn rope. She didn't think much of the rope. Unraveling and frayed, a pale yellow betraying its age, yet still strong enough to be useful. She had found it on the beach. Another piece of jetsam brought in with the tide along with other trash, much of which, would be washed away on the turn.
A continuous cycle of: Trash in. Trash out.
She placed the bundle of dried wood in the back end of an old car. The car had once been new ... for someone else. Like herself, it had traveled the roads and turnings that make up time coming to rest, at least for a short while, in her possession. It would remain for only as long as she could pay the costs: fuel, license, insurance and the never ending repairs needed to keep an old vehicle running. While you might get a modicum of moral support or token financial allotment for caring for an aged person, caring for an aged car was unique and there wasn't any support for that anywhere. Old cars, like old people, just died. Few cared either way.
Collecting a jacket, a blanket and a recycled plastic baggie with some food in it, she placed these in the car too. Intended as lunch, the baggie was secured with a mangled green twister saved from a grocery visit. Verifying she had already stowed a folding chair, she returned to the kitchen.
Taking the paper from the worn table she folded it neatly and placed it in her pocket.
She picked up her purse; locking the door as she left.
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