Sharell grabbed the Yellow Pages. Its only purpose until now was to even out her coffee table. She scanned the pages to locate the five strangers. If she found them, she would blackmail into giving her an alibi. She didn’t want to deal with anyone close to home. They couldn’t be family or coworkers. No one with a connection to her. Authorities could not trace them back to her. They wouldn’t have to make a statement. It would be more like an accidental alibi. They were providing one unbeknownst to them. She knew they were in the wrong place at the wrong time. And by them being there, they had something to conceal. They wouldn’t admit their being there.
Before she checked the Yellow Pages, she checked Facebook which was no help. Then Twitter and Instagram. Same results. These people, of middle age, surprisingly had no social media profiles. ‘Did they make people like them anymore?’ she asked herself. She couldn’t call anyone for help. She searched their names on social media at an Internet café out of town. She made sure not to have any evidence of them on any of her devices.
Unfamiliar with how to use the Yellow Pages since the last time she looked in one was the nineties. It took her a few minutes before she started to get the hang of it. Her anxiety got the best of her when she forgot the alphabet. For some insensible reason, she was looking for Smith at the front of the book. She couldn’t figure out why Johnson came after Frankford but Smith was towards the end of the Yellow Pages. Rolling her eyes while treating the pages like her childhood bully, she sung the alphabet for the sixth time.
Finally, she found the last of the five names. There was an address and phone number for each of them. Knowing the neighborhoods where they stayed gave her some relief. Though, she would have to travel to three cities. The most convenient way to visit all of the addresses would be to make three trips. The first one being the two ladies in Chelsea. It was maybe an hour and a half from where she stayed.
After all this time searching, she hadn’t thought how she was going to get these strangers to be her alibi. After all, she couldn’t make contact with them. While she was pondering a scheme, the leg of her coffee table broke off. Everything on the left side of the table fell onto the floor in a dominoes effect.
This writing prompt was provided by
Tameka Fleming 