vignette 1.

Vignette #1
By: Emily Fine


It was the longest car ride I had ever taken. TEN HOURS. Ten hours of boredom. Ten hours of sitting next to my eight year old brother who can’t sit still for more than ten minutes.

We were driving on a road neatly outlined by trees that hadn’t been manicured before. There not being a painted line separating the two sides of the road gave me the impression that people didn’t drive here very often. The sky was a dead grey color, covered by swiftly moving clouds. They seemed to follow us as we drove, gliding smoothly across the sky.

The heater made a steady humming noise, like the ring in your ears after a long period of silence. The road wasn’t very flat or smooth, and made my cheek vibrate when I leaned it against the window.

As we drove I struggled to see beyond the trees that whooshed past me- it’s not very often that you see such a beautiful sight. I realized how much in nature I took for granted.

We passed a yellow sign with a silhouette of a deer on it. It pretty much had no point being there, but it made you want to look out the window, just in case there really was a deer.

My brother, Jacob, was playing with his miniature green army men, shoving them into every available crevice in the leather seats of the car. He was narrating his own little army men story; acting out each separate voice of each army man.

“Commander, this is George. General Bob has been killed on the scene. I repeat- killed on the scene!”

I especially hated it when he made sound effects.

“Booooooooooooooosh!!!!” He threw four army men up into the air. “Commander, the fort has exploded!!!!”

He picked up the Commander and said with an Arnold Schwarzenegger accent, “It is all your fault George! Now we are all doomed!”

Ah, the pleasures of having an eight year old brother.

Now there was only nine hours left.

Yipee.