The 28 Minute, Five Minute Freewrite ~ I Get A Major Chill-Every Time I Ponder It's True Value ~ Original Photography and Original Story ~

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~Sometimes, You Just Gotta Finish The Story~

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Five Minute Freewrite

Prompt: Core Values

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The metro bus screeched to a halt, and the doors swung wide at the corner of University and Grand avenue. Holly hugged the two enormous garbage bags to her chest as she made her way from the bus stop bench, across the blistering sidewalk, and up onto the narrow bus stairwell. The bags clunked heavily into the pay-podium by the driver with a porcelain, glassy sound, as she dropped them to to the floor while depositing her money into the little slot of the machine. The driver gave her an inquisitively stern look as the change rattled it's way down to the final box by the floor.

He tilted his funky, Ralph Kramden hat to the side and ran a hand across his sweaty brow, then huffed loudly in her direction, “what's in the bags, Ma'am?”
“Ice!”
“Ice???”
“Ice CORES. Arctic ice. I can bring Ice on the bus!!”
It was more of a statement than a question. The driver had no available response, so closed the doors hard, and lurched the bus back into traffic and on down Grand Avenue.

Holly dragged the bags across the rubber-matt floor, and below the horizontal seats behind the driver. Normally this area was reserved for people in wheelchairs, bicycles, or folks that needed more leg room, but today they were almost empty. Good thing, too. Water was leaking out of the bags at a rapid rate, but only one thought crossed her mind as she settled into the hard seat: "amazing what Arizona air will do to 40 pounds of rock-hard ice.”

The woman Holly plomped down next to frowned and pulled her pocketbook closer to her chest, as she scooched as far away as possible, without becoming one with the hard arm rest beyond. Holly re-assured her, patting the bags and smiling like a cherubic wonder, “Don't worry, it's just ice cores. From Greenland. Some are hundreds of thousands of years old. Isn't that COOL?!” Evidently the woman was not a scientist.

She tightened her grip on the handbag, and muttered what sounded like a short harrumph to the thick, bus air. Though Holly was not entirely sure, it COULD have been the air brakes of the bus making the sound. Whatever the source, the bus careened on down Grand Avenue, and Holly broke into a wide, happy grin at her newest find.

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A young, wide-eyed lad across the aisle could not resist. “Those are ice cores?”
Holly perked up, “Yeah. They're sample cores. From by the Arctic circle. Scientists drill them from the huge ice sheets covering the land. And do analysis of carbon dioxide, other atmospheric gasses, temperature and air quality. All sorts of important, historical climate data comes from them".

The young man remained interested in the conversation. Holly increased her volume over the loud noise of the bus, “The Hydrology Department was throwing them out today. They just dumped them into the lawn of the Harshbarger building. What a waste! Just melting into the brown grass. The department COULD have had a snow-cone sale on campus with them. Imagine that. Eating a thousand year-old snow-cone. What a waste! The janitor gave me some trash bags, and I gathered up as many as I could carry. I'm going to make highballs out of them! ”

Complete intrigue spread across the young lad's face. Holly pulled a core from the bag, and handed it across the aisle to the boy. “You can keep it.” Icy water ran from the foot-long, 4 inch diameter cylinder, drenching the boys lap, but he was too excited to notice. He just sat in the seat, admiring his new treasure, and beamed like he'd just won the lottery.

Holly felt like she had hit the jackpot as well. Ice cores. Two huge bags of them, all to herself. Great for analyzing climate change over history, even GREATER as a unique ice-source for mixed drinks.

Haywood Avenue was fast approaching, as Holly pulled the 'dinger' cord above, and waited for the bus to screech to a halt once more. They always seemed to be in such a hurry, these buses. But for once, that was a GOOD thing. The ice cores were rapidly becoming ice WATER, in the enormous garbage bags on the floor. Even WITH the planned, extra heft and mass (more ice than needed), to keep things cold on the way home. Her brilliant plan was quickly evaporating into the dry, Southwest air.

Once the bus stopped, she jumped up, drug the leaky bags across the floor, exited the bus, and started trundling the load across the neighborhood toward her small, adobe house down the block.

Moving all the food from the freezer, down to the refrigerator below didn't take too long. It took a bit of coercion, but all the ice cores fit into the freezer. And one other separate, Gott cooler, with only a couple of cores left over. That was just fine. After all, it was time to do a bit of climate science of her own.

Holly moved straight to the ice analysis at hand -- "Let's see, Amaretto from cupboard above the stove, check. Glass...that one should do, check. Spoon, check. Small hammer from the junk drawer...gotta bust these things up SOMEHOW, check." All was set, and things were 'shaping up most excellent', to color the rest of the day with a whole lot of relaxed abandon.

Sitting on the front porch in the big, re-purposed, over-stuffed easy chair, feet up on the short front wall, stirring her first aperitif with index finger, Holly was happily taken back to those credit card commercials on the TV of old. She smiled and took a sip of the ice-cold Amaretto as she ticked down her mental checklist, and the promise of complete joy for the rest of the afternoon:

-Full Bottle of Amaretto di Amore : $9.99
-Short, heavy drink glass from garage sale : $1.00
-Hammer from the Goodwill: $3.99
-Fancy spoon from Somewhere or Another: Free
-Ice Core Value of sipping a highball, splashed over one thousand year-old, crystal-pure ice from hundreds of feet below Greenland:

PRICELESS!!!!

~ Finto ~

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Here is the link to the post about the Five Minute Weekend Freewrite, put on by @mariannewest:
[Five Minute Freewrite Prompt Post] - Prompt: Core Values

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Thanks for stopping in and viewing the latest installment of the 28-Minute, Five Minute Freewrite. If you have any thoughts about the ice cores from way below the earth, drinking in the afternoon with the HELP of these ice cores, taking things on the bus that might be a bit 'questionable', or anything else this post reminds you of, please feel free to comment away in the spaces below. I'd love to hear from you.

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Please UPVOTE, COMMENT and FOLLOW if you enjoy my works.

And go to @ddschteinn -- There's a whole lot more...

_{Posted: 06/27/2018 @ 17:00}

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Excerpts From Late-Night Conversations With A Mechanical Cat

Fact Number 80