The Smell of a Carrot

With age comes wisdom. Sometimes... That may not be the case for Mark.

Mark needed carrots. His refrigerator was practically empty, as was his wallet, but more than anything else he needed carrots. See, Mark was… Well… Mark was Mark. Fat; oh sorry, that’s rude. Mark was slightly overweight and balding in the sense that he was bald except for his sideburns which he refused to surrender. Mark’s wife was a homely lady herself and like many of her kind she knew how to cook. Tonight, she wanted to make beef stew. For that, she needed carrots thus, Mark was going to get them.

It was a busy day as well, cars buzzing down the highway with little to no concern for the speed limit. Mark glanced at his gage and determined that he was indeed going an appropriate pace for highway traffic and shook his head at the motorists flying around him in the passing lane.

Exit 45. That was Mark’s exit. Mark had passed his exit. Damn sign. Mark cursed his luck, he drove this highway at least once a month, he should have known where the exit was.

Red and blue lights flashed in his rear-view mirror. A siren squealed to life behind him. What? Why? He was the only person on the road that wasn’t speeding. Never the less Mark pulled to the shoulder of the road. His back ailed him as his worn shocks failed to adjust to the rough drunk bumps on the side of the highway.

The lights followed him to a stop and then the only guaranteed part of being pulled over began. The wait. The long, pointless wait. Mark sat in his seat, hand on the wheel, engine off, radio low enough that only he could hear it. Mark waited, and waited, and then waited some more. Meanwhile the officer sat back, reclining in his seat as he drug out a slow conversation over his scanner and chomped down a glazed doughnut.

“Excuse me sir.” Finally. “Have you had anything to drink tonight?” The officer spoke in a deep voice. He didn’t have a deep voice, but he tucked in his chin and did his best not to sound like a twelve-year-old doing his best Bobby Bare impression.

“No sir, not since last Tuesday.”

“It is Tuesday.”

“It’s not Tuesday last week anymore though is it.” Mark laughed at his own quip; it was pretty sharp for him.

The officer did not laugh. “Please step out of the vehicle for me sir.”

Twenty-three minutes later Mark was sent on his merry way, heading for the supermarket once more. The officer claimed Mark had been all over the road, but he knew that wasn’t the case. That stop had been nothing more than pure, blatant discrimination. A decision based on nothing more than a color. Mark was driving a red car. Red cars are more likely to be pulled over than any other denomination of vehicles.

Having turned himself around after the stop, Mark was now at his exit once more. He turned on his blinker and changed lanes to the off ramp, cursing whatever drunken idiot had drawn the lanes so crooked.

Once in town Mark was faced with the joys of driving in urban areas. Speedbumps in front of every drive, most were so short that Mark couldn’t even see them as he was turning, but he always felt them as he drove over the top. Then there was the constant stream of aggressive drivers. Horns sounded behind him almost the entire time when he entered the city. He always tried to wave them around but nobody ever wanted to pass. They all preferred to just drive behind him and lean on their horns.

It was slow going, but that wins the race in the end, especially when all the rabbits refuse to pass. There was the supermarket. There went the supermarket. Mark had passed the drive. Damn Drive. Of course, the turn into the supermarket was not in front of the main doors, it was at the far corner of the parking lot. With all the extra driving, he was doing, Mark was going to need gas before he could get home.

Luckily the gas station wasn’t far from the store. In fact, it was in the direction that Mark was going. He decided to get the gas first, then he could stop at the supermarket on his way home. He had pulled into pump six and was waiting as the pump worked when he overheard a conversation from the other side of it.

“Yeah man, them damn COPS, all they see is our colors bro. They don’t care what we been doin’. If they spot us comin’ you know they gonna stop us.” The speaker was a middle-aged man with dark skin. He was fueling his red Cadillac and speaking to another, slightly younger, black man.

Mark felt compelled to show his support. “Yes sir, you know I was actually stopped on my way here too.” He smiled at the duo across the pump.

The older of the two looked incredulously at Mark. “Oh yeah, so what cause some old fart of a cracker gets pulled over it all evens out. What were you doing? Twenty in a seventy?”

Mark shook his head, slightly confused. “No, I wasn’t doing anything wrong they just pulled me over because I’m dri-“

“Shut-up old man, before my boy her gets all up in yo’ business. You say you wasn’t doin’ nothin’ wrong, well then you just don’t get it. We did do somethin’ wrong see; we was born black. And that’s a crime in the US of A.”

Now Mark understood. “Oh, I get it now! I thought you were talking about the red car there. Hahaha!” He laughed aloud.

“What! What the f-“

“I thought you were talking about red cars being pulled over more often than any other color. But hey, if he stopped you for racial reasons you should take that to court.” Mark replied sincerely.

The men looked at him stupefied again. Then the younger of the two spoke for the first time. “We tried that, only thing is, well, we had a little weed in the car is all.”

“Put a lid on that s**t man! He don’t need to know that. Let’s split outa here, I’m done talkin’ to this fool.” The older man put the nozzle back into its holder and they left.

Mark followed behind them shortly, heading once again to the supermarket where he could get his carrots. A red Ferrari came flying up behind Mark as he pulled out of the gas station, nearly rear ending him. The sports car swerved into the other lane in the nick of time. Mark caught a glimpse of the driver who looked suspiciously like Al Pacino as a second man in the passenger seat flipped him the bird.

            Despite the short distance between the gas station and the store, Mark still built up a long line of followers on the winding road. He ignored the honking horns and entered the parking lot with no major problems; minus another invisible speed bump. Now he needed to find a parking spot. So, he drove up and down the rows of vehicles, looking for an empty hole near the door. Eventually he found one by the cart rack. He turned his wheel sharply to the right and grimaced as the hollow pipe scrapped against the side of his car. The idiot to the left side of his parking spot had parked to close to the line. Mark sighed and kept going, there was no avoiding it now. His car was just going to have a scrape down the side of it.

            Inside the store, Mark was faced with a difficult choice. What kind of carrot did he need? Fresh? Frozen? Baby? He didn’t know much about making beef stew and he knew even less about carrots. He had never been fond of the orange vegetables. He decided to call his wife and ask. Pulling his aged phone from his pocket he flipped it open and pushed the button to get to his contacts. He squinted his eyes, pulled the phone closer to his face, but no matter how hard he looked, the screen was not legible. Damn phone. It appears his screen was broken.

            Giving up on the phone he wandered to the frozen section to pick up a bag of frozen baby carrots. After wandering the aisles for a little over ten minutes looking for carrots. He switched gears and started wandering the aisles in pursuit of an employee. That proved to be more of a challenge than he had expected. Half an hour later Mark stumbled upon frozen sliced carrots, having lost his will to shop a long time ago, he figured those would do.

            Making his way towards the checkout lines Mark bumped shoulders with a woman coming out of an aisle. Mark dropped his carrots; she dropped her milk jug. The milk splashed on the ground, soaking their shoes and paint legs. Mark bent as quickly as he could, swooping his carrots out of the puddle with both hands. On top of the carrots he found a pair of milk splattered glasses. He wiped them clean with his shirt and looked down through the glass to inspect his work.

            Hu. He could see quit clearly through them… Well, maybe he should have been in the glass cleaning business. He handed the woman her glasses, then they both made a break for it, trying to clear the scene before the maintenance workers arrived. Why? They didn’t know, it just felt natural.

            Mark bought his carrots, then wondered outside into an oddly foggy evening and began the hunt for his car. It was going to be a long drive home.

 

           

Author's Note

If anybody has some suggestions for a better ending I'm all ears. I struggled a little with finding a good stopping place for this one!

Reviews

[Sara Lufrano]

Hi Hi!

I like that carrots are his end game, that's a funny item to seek out.

I feel like you have a lot of themes going through this. He's an older, poor man in a city where's there's no time for him. We've got the racial issue with the gas station brothers. He's searching for carrots. Then there's the collision at the end.

One of those themes should be the main purpose and carry throughout the story. You're almost there with the carrots but they get lost at the gas station and there's no resolve with them and the stew. But you can almost use any of the themes you've got here. Maybe it all comes back to the stew. And if it doesn't hopefully it helps you find that things you want to resolve with the story.

Thanks for the read!

[Author Gus]

Thank you kindly, I actually chose the carrots because they are supposed to be good for your eyesight; and the title is a reference to the inspiration which was the movie "The Scent of A Woman."
And I completely agree with having too many themes!

[Keith Daniels]

This is interesting. I like that there are distinct patterns within the narrative, and your dialogue is nicely paced. I do think you should get someone to edit, as there were quit uh fyew spilling and grammar, errors. Also I like the way you turned the potentially volatile situation at the gas station into a comedic scene. Nice job!