NOVEL EXCERPT – Broken Branch

SOMETHING WAS unfolding, something shapeless but engaging, opening slowly – unlike a venetian blind, or a mini-blind, more like a sun faded window shade; even more like an accordion for there was the sound of music mixed with this shapeless form. Wimberly looked down into a foggy stare.  The outlines on her garment blended. She could feel herself advancing upon a bend. She leaned and peered around the bend.  She immediately regained her posture. Had anyone seen her unguarded moment?  Wimberly’s eyes fluttered then became fixed on the scene outside the double paned window; the panes shimmied with the colors of carnival.  Several high steeples glittered between tall pines along a bulging commercial corridor.

Wimberly squeezed her shaking hands. Why should I be so on the ledge with nerves tingling like attached to an electric cord. This simple transaction had become a mortared cement block waiting too long to fall from my shoulders, Wimberly thought.  The sale of plated land.  It was not such a transaction as to cause anyone to lift their feet from the gas pedal or trigger acceleration on the boards of any Stock Exchange. None of the heavenly bodies expected to be signaled. The richter scale would not have registered nor would any resident along the Trolley have felt movement along the fault line.

So what the hell was it?

It should have been labeled measly, piddling and inconsequential.  Three Avery labels # 6358 would have allowed sufficient visual impact.  It would have been neighborly had the word caution written in bold red letters been placed strategically.  Then they would have suspected their oddness and sought safety rushing away like bugs caught in the middle of the floor.

Yet, Wimberly was rushed in foot soldier fashion by a broad who could have been the last one left standing in the Trojan War.  The broad had well earned the title over the last thirty days.  Wimberly was not mistaken, she had indeed been greeted with Sunday music – someone had indeed increased the volume each time she entered the lawyer’s office.  As it turned out, the black extra thick book the legal assistant turned, shuffled, opened and closed loudly was a gold embossed Holy Bible.  They need me to place my hands on it, I’ll do that Wimberly thought.  One could easily say of this legal team, they go to church in the morning and stay almost all day.

Maybe this is the usual pre-closing sable rattling Wimberly concluded. Her deep angelic smile had not deterred them but their line of questions had led nowhere.  A nearby church bell rang while staff struggled to keep their laughter silent.  Wimberly had a firm grip on the document that proved lineage. I should shake it in their faces vigorously she thought.  Wimberly verged on pissing a steady strait stream.  She filled her mind with tidbits of the transaction instead. Clyde sat uncomfortably. His pale legs jetted deep under the coffee table.  Clyde was not in a position to stir up a commotion and make a defiant exit with a hitch in his rump having traveled from upstate New York three days earlier.