7 Crows

Chapter Nine | 05:58

Chapter Nine

05:58 pm. New Year's Eve.

Niven reached out her both hands and gripped tight on the '7' to steady herself.

"Bloody hell!" She cursed, closing her eyes to the warm burst in her stomach and her racing heart. She then calmed herself, forcing air out from between her teeth, and opened her eyes again.

"Oh, Jiminy Cricket," Niven sighed, as she brought her hand to her face and found her eye-glasses missing. It slipped off her nose while she grabbed onto the neon sign for her dear life.

She scanned the ground, squinting her eyes but her short-sightedness obscured her from seeing anything clearly. "I hope it's not broken. It would be flipping hard to navigate through a world of smudges."

As Niven peered downward, a head of black hair caught her sight. She comprehended the figure retreating away from the motel to be Kanwaljit Patel from the muttering in his mother tongue.

"What a funny bloke." She muttered, a flare of hostility in her voice.

"Alright, let's get this done and over with!" Niven exclaimed, pushing up her rolled up shirt sleeves. She then snatched the piece of cotton rag from her back pocket, careful not to fall off the roof, and resumed cleaning the neon sign.

"Excellent!" Niven exhaled, "Give yourself a pat on the back." She praised to herself, a grin breaking out on the side of her face.

She sat on the ridge of the motel roof, her legs dangling on either sides. It was an uncomfortable position but she hardly noticed it as she admired her finished work.

The cold breeze caressed her face and she shuddered. Niven gazed up to spot the sun dipping below the horizon and the bluish grey hues of the approaching night fighting to gain control of the sky.

She had finished fixing the brand new neon sign just in time for the sunset.

Niven grabbed the tool box and carefully climbed down the ladder. As her feet touched the ground, a sigh of relief blew past her thin lips.

She strained her eyes around the premises and found her eye-glasses lying few metres away from the ladder. Niven stooped down and picked up the glasses to discover one of the lenses cracked right down the middle.

"Aw damn," She grumbled. "What a rotten luck!"

Niven plodded towards the motel. She pushed open the storm door, entering the reception area and dropped the tool box on the counter. She stretched her right arm and flipped the switches on. Light flooded the room.

As Niven heard the tube lights flicker, she rushed back outside and craned her neck, looking up at the neon sign. After a brief spell of darkness, an intermittent surge of artificial red light crackled to life, overwhelming the motel entrance in a reddish-orange glow.

Niven's cheeks moved up and the corners of her eyes crinkled. It made her happy knowing that Mr. Boone could see the motel sign was fully functional now as he returns back from his vacation.

The rest of the evening went relatively smooth from there.

Time went by and it was ten o'clock after dark. Niven lounged behind the reception counter after the day's back-breaking work of fixing the motel sign. Her olive-green eyes devoured the comic book held in her hands, occasionally pausing to snack on the Jammie Dodgers and sip her cup of tea.

The sound of a car engine dying down caught her ears and Niven peeked over the top of the book. She leaned over the desk and looked through the storm door, noting a pair of midnight-blue pant legs with an oxblood shoes poking out at the bottom and then the soft slam as the driver's door of the ash sedan shut.