Legendary Leaps of Literature

A rare opportunity!

Legends of luck meet leaps of literature for this 2024 Leap Day! Once every four years, an extra day “appears” in the arbitrary calendar we use to track time. It’s not your average day! I promise!

Use this prompt to write about rare things, or events that happened in relation to leap days or leap years in the past.

Out of all the gas stations in all the townships between his house and the party, what were the odds he’d manage to drive into mine?

I was working as an overnight clerk, responsible for keeping the shop going through the night while I stocked the entire store for the next business day. There were a few neighborhoods around the area, but it was mainly filled with industrial parks, the customers mostly employees going to or from work. A highway stretched nearby, but it wasn’t a popular one; the road was more commonly used for industrial vehicles and trucks. Unless they lived nearby, most people wouldn’t have bothered with the highway for typical travel.

But he did. Because he was driving about 50 miles from one end of the highway to another, this was the quickest shot to where he needed to go. And for some reason, he didn’t notice his gas tank was empty until just before our exit. As fate would have it, he pulled up to a pump and waltzed into the building as if we were complete strangers.

Well, perhaps to him, I was.

If not for mortal’s friend showing up at that exact moment, we never would have reconnected. Not for lack of trying — I’d been searching my memory for anything that would help me find mortal again, after the 5 years we’d drifted apart. But no luck; apparently it had been saving itself up for that unlikely encounter.

It’s a legendary opportunity to write on Medium, right?

Bring those rare moments to Monster Alley! Not a writer yet? Come write for us today!