#WritingWonders 5.5 — What scents and sounds can be found in your MC's workplace?
She doesn't have a workplace, per se. I'm taking this opportunity to briefly show you one place she did "work."
#excerpt [at 2 AM, abandoned downtown, edited for this audience]
Feeling exposed in the empty intersection, I retreated to the furthest street corner where there was a lamp post and a red newspaper machine. A moth buzzed the light. I continued to prep Levitate and decided Illuminate might prove useful. I might need to grab or blind an opponent.
Neither thug seemed in any hurry to engage. The day angel fluttered up to the black awning over a doorway of a brick building: 17 Restaurant. Closed. He fluffed his feathers.
I swallowed hard.
This fight had no rules. I had to get that through my head. Coach's words came to me. "Attitude. If you don't have that, you lose."
I squared my shoulders. I glanced at my surroundings. As I had learned about most eastern cities, this one would not win any clean-and-neat prize. I saw gum wrappers crinkling in the breeze, a discarded cup I crushed with a pop, and a spilt half-empty juice bottle bobbing in the wet gutter. Someone had curbed their dog near by, recently from the fragrance.
I was dimly cognizant that the juice bottle looked like orange juice as I found a coin and inserted it into the newspaper machine. It clanked, unlatched. Keeping an eye on the two rival gangsters, I pulled out a Harbor Cities Sun and it banged closed. It echoed loudly. I pulled out the sports section, smelling the newsprint as I dropped the rest of the paper on top of the machine as courtesy dictated. The breeze rustled the pages.
They kept looking.
I picked up the orange juice bottle—Sunny Daze brand with a smiling sun graphic on the label. I brought it to my lips to see their reaction.
The day angel flinched, a shoe sliding loudly on the canvas awning.
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