Free Write - Two Men

  

As the three Free Writers sipped their espresso, English Breakfast Tea and hot chocolate respectfully in the cool tea room we looked for a "victim" to be the prompt for this week's exercise. Rick spied the two men and snapped their photo. We picked up our pens and started to write.

Rick's Free Writ

They had been a‘couple friends’ for a number of years. Their wives were frequent friends, so Douglas and Pierre got pulled along to social gatherings and therefore knew about each other without much detail. They were not in similar businesses – Douglas construction, Pierre a merchant. So small talk mostly – the weather, the next Swiss national initiative up for votation, maybe a little international politics but without either revealing whether they leaned left or right. You didn’t divulge that in polite company.

But after both Harriet and Dolores had died within months of each other, Douglas and Pierre, now retired, had a plethora of time on their hands.

You wouldn’t call them ‘dates,’ not with two elderly hetero males. More like hanging out. The café once or twice a week. An occasional movie, eventually supplanted by Netflix at one or the other’s house. Museums. Even a day trip to Paris.

It worked for them.

Julia's Free Write

One two, one two, good little soldiers are we!

Interesting to see two men having coffee – or tea – obviously not anything stronger as it is a tearoom and 10 in the morning.

But we are summer and they are, again obviously, retired.

If one were to guess what their professions had been, I’d go for at least middle management in a sedentary post. Why? Short hair, white shirts – note not t-shirts nor polos – and dark Bermuda shorts.

The shorter of the two was in the lead: boss perhaps?

More intriguing: research later would show that both had been heavily involved in the management and training of Russian spies!

D-L's Free Write

Identical shorts, shirts, sneakers. Jim first, John second walking out of the tea room in formation. 

The two of them, retirees, codgers, wrinklies. Friends from being childhood neighbors. Cub Scouts, Boy Scouts.

Only Christmas reunions when they were at university, Jim at Stanford, John at Harvard.

New York City jobs, Jim in finance, John with a law firm.

Homes in Westchester. Weekend golf, tennis .

Jim 2 boys, John 2 girls. No, the kids didn't match up.

Kicked out of their houses by their wives to go have coffee together. Jim espresso. John plain black.

Talk about the good old days. The World Cup. Wimbledon. The Yankees.

A life flashing by. 

 About the Free Writers

Rick Adams is an aviation journalist and publisher of www.aviationvoices.com, a weekly newsletter reporting the airline industry  top stories . He is the author of The Robot in the Simulator. AI in Aviation Training.  

Visit D-L.'s website  https://dlnelsonwriter.com, She is the author of 15 fiction and three non fiction books. Her 300 Unsung Women, bios of women who battled gender limitations, can be purchased  at https://www.barnesandnoble.com/w/300-unsung-women-d-l-nelson/1147305797?ean=9798990385504 

Visit Julia's blog. She has written and taken photos and loves syncing up with friends.  Her blog can be found: https://viewsfromeverywhere.blogspot.com/