#AtoZ — Mister

Join me during the month of April as I blog through the alphabet. My theme will be What’s In A Name. I will attempt to write up a short fictional character sketch beginning with a different letter of the alphabet each day. Remember that a place can also be a character.

I noticed the car before I noticed the driver. It was a Silver Mercedes C250. It drove right past me as I got stuck behind a big rig doing 45 while everyone zipped by doing 75. When I stopped at the Rest Area I noticed the Benz parked there as I slowly pulled out and back to the freeway after my stretch break. The driver was on his cell phone and I couldn’t help noticing that he looked irate. I was glad I didn’t have the pressures that business people seemed to have.

At the next area, sixty-four miles north of the previous one, there it was again. I hadn’t noticed it when it passed me this time but it was in the rest area, no driver.

As I walked toward the rest rooms, I saw the blond man I had seen behind the driver’s seat of the Mercedes. He wore a black three piece pinstripe suit and looked pretty uncomfortable in it. He did smile and nod at me as he mumbled “good day.” The was something about him. His obvious discomfort; his smile; a hesitance which made me feel that he was in no rush to get back to his car or on the road or even back to his life. That’s when I named him. He was simply Mister.

When I got back to my car, the Mercedes Benz was gone and as I drove on, I couldn’t help thinking up all sorts of scenarios about Mister’s life.

A couple of days later, it was on the news. Someone was missing and foul play was suspected. A business man who had last been seen leaving the parking lot of his office building in a silver Mercedes Benz C250. The man’s description matched Mister. The suspicious thing? His car had been found at a rest area, locked, and without its driver. A search had not turned up the driver. He had simply vanished at the rest stop.

I wondered about Mister. What had happened? Was he really missing or had he simply chosen to disappear?

I thought about Mister and kept a close ear out for news. I wanted to know what had happened to Mister and wondered if I would ever find out.