Jebediah poked at his pancakes. Carefully and quickly, he was assaulting his stack with precision pokes in what was soon resembling a near perfect grid pattern. Soon the entire pancake was full of tiny holes.
“Are you doing that again?” Jeremiah asked the question, even though his mouth was still chewing on a mouthful of waffles.
“It’s a more efficient way for the syrup to get where it needs to go.”
“You are the only person I know who has a battle plan for pancakes. You’re also the only person I know of who takes them so seriously.”
“I take everything seriously.” Jebediah started pouring the maple syrup over his pancakes. He poured quickly and, again, in a grid pattern, following his fork holes. Jeremiah just shook his head.
Jeremiah started to say something, but instead turned his attention to his waffles. Before the next bite could reach his mouth, he felt a familiar vibration in his jacket pocket. He decided to take a chance that it was a text message, and proceeded to eat his waffles. The vibration continued as he kept chewing his waffles.
“Are you going to get that?” Jebediah asked him while he cut his stack of pancakes into six almost equal pie-shaped pieces. Jeremiah nodded and reached for his phone. The readout simply read XXX-YYY-ZZZZ. He flipped the phone open as he swallowed his latest bite of breakfast.
“Hello good sir. A fine morning to you.”
“Is it really? I’m not seeing evidence of the occluded front I was hoping for.” The voice was still cold and altered, but their was enough inflection to indicate the caller was not in a jovial mood.
“Well, the weather doesn’t always go as planned.”
“A stationary front would have been better. I’m not happy with the two cold fronts I’m seeing.”
“Well, I’m hoping to shop for a new Pontiac later, so maybe that will turn things around. It would be my luck.”
“I’m texting you a number of someone who can help you with finding the right one. Text before you call. Her…schedule is a bit dicey.”
“Any word from our friend Mokoto?”
“She…must have her phone off. If you can, check into that too.”
***
“That…that is a problem.” Bob saw the second set of tracks, and the cars off to the side without a locomotive. The train was bending to the East, and soon the rail yard would be gone from their view in the West, which was quickly becoming a view of the Northwest.
“Hold up. Did you see any tracks that went West? Maybe this is one of those situations where the train has to back up to get in the yard.”
“That’s a sentence with one too many maybes.” Bob’s eyes were back on the ground, which was slowing down. He was starting to make out individual rocks. “When I said we get off here, I was really hoping the train would slow down just a bit more.”
Phil watched as their view shifted completely to the North. The train kept slowing down, but it hadn’t stopped yet. He could feel his rekindled quest for answers slipping away.
