Setting a Scene

I want to get into writing some fiction and I don't have anything I want to discuss today, so I'm going to write an introduction to a character. Enjoy. -HR

Dante gave himself a quick pat down before he walked out the door of his apartment, checking for his wallet, keys, and phone before closing the door behind him. His footfalls echoed through the stairwell as he came down from his top floor apartment and when he reached the bottom of the stairs he hip checked the front door of his building open and stepped out into the cool DC fall morning.

Dante's eyes scanned for his car and he quickly spotted it across the street near the end of the block. After getting diesel fumes belched in his face by a Metrobus, he took the required number of steps to reach his car. Despite the fact that Dante was a little more than six feet tall and a lean 200 pounds, he had the lumbering gait and carriage of a much heavier man. He opened up the low-slung two door car and dropped into the driver's seat like a ton of bricks.

The car's engine came to life with a quick twist of the ignition key and Dante rolled down the windows to let out the stale funk emanating from the duffel bag in the back seat. He twisted around in his seat and started to dig through the half open bag, feeling around blindly until he felt the familiar shape of a pack of cigarettes and plucked them from the bag. He pushed in the lighter in the dashboard of the car and pulled into traffic as he jammed a Newport between his lips.

As he navigated his way out of the city and enjoyed the feeling of tar and nicotine grabbing his lungs he began to think about the day ahead of him. Dante worked at a pretty standard government contractor job; do a bunch of stuff that the feds can't or won't do for themselves and have them resent you for it. Today was a little different because last night the wire transfer went through, he could hardly believe it when he looked at his account balance before he left for work this morning and saw that it read "Available Balance - $786,423.92." It was official, he no longer needed to work at a job he didn't really like just to make ends meet.

He had been waiting for this day for a few months and now that it was here he didn't really know what to do. Should he detour over to the Tune Inn and have a couple of cocktails before going to the office and wait for someone to say something to him? Maybe during the weekly staff meeting he would go ahead and tell the insufferable jackass that he worked for what he really thought of his latest project plan. Then again maybe he would just keep working like normal and the next time someone, anyone said or did anything that annoyed him he would simply announce, "I quit" and walk out the door with no explanation.

It wasn't a matter of 'if', but 'when' he was going to quit working for the soulless defense contractor that had provided him a pretty good living for the last three years.