Wordzzle 64 - "And the number was Ten"

Wordzzle 64 - "And the number was Ten"

Take a couple of minutes, maybe 10, to go by the Raven's Nest and check out the person responsible for this story and others.

This Week's Ten Word Challenge: albino, trench, marble, assistant, Indian, What's that supposed to mean?, sound first principles, the key thing, moat, curtain

The mini challenge: under the surface, doomed, grand design, temple, aspirin

This Week's Episode: Out of the Woods?

Martin came awake quickly, startled by the sunglass wearing beauty at his driver's window. He'd left the window open to keep the car cooler, but it hadn't worked all that well. As he jumped in his seat to sit up straight, his feet hit both the parking brake and foot brake on his 02 Buick LeSabre. The American cruiser started a slide and then roll down the hill toward the road like a slab of marble coming off the cutting table at a quarry.

The wet leaves under the surface of the tall grass beneath the wheels acted as an assistant in the launch. He was so discombobulated by the events that it looked as if he was doomed to crash into the gate at the bottom of the hill before he could gain control of the vehicle. He just had time to notice that the car had run over the woman's foot when he jerked awake. He caught a strobe like vision of the gorgeous vixen falling backward as her sunglasses flew off and she went down. What stuck with him were the piercing emerald eyes and the look of intense hatred, scorn and fury that lashed out at his departing form as the car picked up speed.

Somehow he must have been considered essential by the fates, or necessary to the grand design, because he managed to get the car started and gunned the Buick out the front gate. His plans had changed instantly.

As he looked out the rear view mirror he noticed smoke emanating from Hollingsworth's magnificent home. He knew he wanted no part of whatever was taking place there. Foremost in his mind at this point was escape. One of the sound first principles his old man had taught him was to not get involved in domestic disputes and this had the look and smell of exactly that.

He spent just enough time looking in the rear view mirror that he failed to slow down for the construction trench he'd encountered on the way in to the estate. It was covered by heavy metal plates that used their weight to hold them down. In the interim between his arrival and his now hasty departure a large truck had displaced one of the plates. His passenger side front tire hit the gap perfectly, slicing the sidewall rubber at its weakest point. The ensuing blowout jerked the car hard right at over 50 miles per hour. The gallant Buick sailed across the irrigation ditch that ran beside the road and landed intact in a small vineyard in the field a few feet below the roadbed. It was as though Martin had leaped his mighty steed over the castle moat into the luscious courtyard of a Mediterranean keep.

"Starsky and Hutch have nothing on me" he muttered to himself as he rubbed his temple where it had contacted the door frame. "I'm going to need a case of Aspirin to get over this headache" he thought as he exited the LeSabre to check the damage. He looked up just as the rental car with the woman roared by and he ducked in fear. In her haste to catch up to him she missed him sitting in the vineyard. He sighed in relief and watched the vineyard keeper approach him down the track between the fields. To his surprise the young man was riding a classic Indian motorcycle and smiling. He wasn't sure which he found more surprising; the classic bike or the inappropriate smile.

The motorcyclist had the pure white hair of an albino, but a deeply tanned face. His smile grew as he parked the bike and came over to the Buick. The vintner surveyed the scene, noting that few vines had been damaged and the remarkably good condition of the car. "Well alright then, I guess it's OK if you want to do your commercial at the Winery" he grinned at Martin.

Martin was still shook-up though unhurt and could only utter; "What's that supposed to mean?" "Pardner, I watched you jump the ditch with this big honking Buick and figured yall must be doing some kind of TV add or something" the biker responded. "At least it looked that way from the other end of the field." "Are you OK?" he continued. "I guess" replied Martin, "I've never jumped a car over a ditch before." "And certainly never on purpose" he finished.

"You look like you're having a bad day man." "This incident could have been curtains for you if you hadn't done such a great job of landing your card on the access path." "The key thing here is that you're still breathing." "Let's see if we can get you and your ride out of here in one piece" the young man said.

Though Martin didn't know it, he'd escaped death twice in less than an hour. Some of the luckiest people in the world never know how incredibly lucky they really are. Martin Heingold was foremost among them on this day.

RT