The weeks news. A story written around a famous painting. Part 1

It’s been a quiet week up here on the mountain, and I’m going to leave it there. I had intended to write a story from my childhood about a cow I had many years ago. Instead, I have been inspired by a work of art, and a model builder, to write something very different, so after a brief visit with the news up here, I will dive into it. Earlier this week I happened to give a quick glance out the window before taking one of the dogs out, and chanced to see a young bull moose rubbing his head on one of the cedar posts I installed at the end of the driveway. Not wanting him to knock it down, I stepped out on the porch to yell at him. There was a rope coiled up in a hook on that post we used as a gate when we weren’t here. Well, when I yelled, he managed to get his antlers tangled in the rope before heading up the bank. Now, somewhere on the mountain, is a young bull moose with rope wrapped around his antlers. In January, when they loose their antlers, some shed hunter will find them and wonder what the hell happened. I wish I was going to be close for that story when that person tells their friends about it. Now, on to the story and an introduction for its inspiration. There is a fairly well known work of art hanging in the Art Institute of Chicago titled “Nighthawks”. The artist was Edward Hopper and he painted it in 1942. It depicts a scene of four people in a diner, three patrons and a cook, and is meant to showcase the feeling of being alone in a city full of people. As for the model builder, he’s a Canadian gentleman on YouTube I know only as Boomer Diorama| River Railroad, the man is a craftsman in model building, and has taken on building the Nighthawks diner scene. Now, in that painting, you only see about a third of the diner, so Boomer has taken it upon himself to build a complete model of a 1940’s diner. So far, he’s done a really good job with it. Yesterday, he added a smaller scene to it, a child’s bike sits by the open double delivery door. He talked about making a story from that mini scene, and how many possibilities there were, as well as stories one could come up with. So, that is what I’m doing. Now, I know the painting was done in 1942, but for the purposes of this tale, I have moved the scene itself back to the late summer of 1941 (writers prerogative), and the reason will become apparent as the tale unfolds. This will be a story told in two or three parts over this weekend, since I don’t wish to overload the reader. So, without further ado… Nighthawks DinerPart 1 It was a hot summer night in late August, the kind of night where the humidity weighs you down such that you feel like you’re treading water, and your cloths stick to you like a second skin. He was on his way home; he’d been hanging out with friends and lost track of the time. Mother would be mad, but he decided to stop quick by the diner where his favorite uncle worked, and grab a soda pop to beat off some of this nasty heat, as well as one for his mother to hopefully placate her when he got home. He parked his bike next to the open delivery doors, his uncle always left them open when it was this hot, and went inside. He grabbed two pops from the new refrigerator in the rear of the kitchen, then took a peek into the dinning area. That concludes Part 1.