#Bloganuary – Day 24 – Mad Rush.

Write about a dream you remember.

January 24th prompt

Paula opened her eyes slowly, but when her brain registered a rogue ray of sunshine between the blackout curtains, she bolted upright. “What happened last night?” She was fully clothed.

“Olga! Get up!” Paula shook her sister who – like her – laid on top of the duvet fully dressed, as she surveyed the alarm clock.

“Why? What time is-“

“It’s 4 o’clock!” Paula jumped out of bed and feverishly started packing. “Our plane is at 5.40. And we missed check-out, which was at 11.” She was annoyed that she would be charged for an extra night just because she had not checked out on time. “It’s on them.” Paula shrugged, curious why no one from reception had called to check on them. “Is this how people die and don’t get discovered for days?” she pondered as she sat down on top of her suitcase to zip it.

Olga gathered a pile of clothes from around the room and tossed it into her suitcase. was tossing random pieces of clothing she found around the room into her suitcase. “Almost done,” she announced, seeing how stressed out Paula was.

“Put your shoes on,” Paula ordered. “I don’t care if we leave some clothes behind. The plane is not going to wait for us. We’re out the door. NOW!” she held the door.

Downstairs, Paula dropped the hotel keycards into a fishbowl and ran in the direction of the train station. She heard someone from the front desk call after her, but she did not have the time to tell them which room she had checked out of. They would have to figure that out on their own. She could straighten things out over the phone from home.

Paula was so deep in thought – calculating how much time they had left until the airplane was scheduled to arrive – that she did not realize Olga was not with her until she saw her sister disappear behind a train that just entered the station. “What the hell?” Paula wanted to yell but bit her tongue. If at least she got to the airport in time, she could ask them to wait for Olga, who had a map with her and would undoubtfully make her way to the airport in no time…

The train left the station within moments of its arrival.

Unlike her sister, Paula did not have a map with her and had no idea which stop she would have to get off at to get to the airport. Realizing that she was not sure if she even boarded the right train, Paula froze. What if it was Olga who waited at the correct platform?

A sign on the inside of the train car featured all of the stops the train made on its route. “Phew,” Paula breathed a sigh of relief prematurely. None of the stops meant anything to her. She would have to ask her fellow passengers for help. Only she did not speak the language.

After finding a group of people who spoke English and were headed in the direction of the airport, Paula got off the train with them. She had a little more than half an hour until the flight. “The stop better be close to the airport“, she hoped. Whenever Paula asked her companions how much farther to the airport, they would tell her they were almost there.

When they entered City Square, Paula was mesmerized by the architecture, puzzled why she and Olga never made their way there while sightseeing. She almost forgot about the time constraint when one of the people she was with announced they had arrived at their destination – The Airport.

“Are you coming in?” someone asked while Paula stood there motionless, mouth agape.

Having realized ‘The Airport’ was a bar, Paula wanted to drop to her knees and cry – she had less than twenty minutes before the plane was scheduled to depart. Instead, she turned away from the bar and pulled out her phone as she began to jog.

“Maybe Olga got there on time.” She felt like a failure – being an older sister meant that she was responsible for everything bad that had happened to Olga. “Why were we asleep until so late in the afternoon?”

Paula was about to dial her sister when she realized that her phone did not have its roaming on, which meant there was no way to contact Olga. There did not seem to be any wireless networks she could connect to, either. She stopped running and looked at the clock in the top right corner of the screen. 5.40.

Was she ever going to even get out of that country? Would she ever see Olga again?

Stay golden,

***

Did you enjoy reading this post?
Hit LIKE.
Have some thoughts on the topic?
Share in the COMMENTS.
Do you regularly enjoy my blog?
Be sure to FOLLOW.
Are my posts getting lost in your busy Reader?
Try SUBSCRIBING.
Want to get to know me better?
Check me out on TWITTER @SamGoldieKirk.