Mickey Z

Cool Observer

Saturday, January 07, 2006

Risky business

Do you have a li-sonce for your Storytelling Saturday?

Once upon a time…

On the train going to high school one morning, I saw James, a guy who went to grammar school with me, dashing up the stairs. We were close friends in the fifth grade or so. We’d regularly play Risk...each game could last for days. I’d always fortify myself in the Australia area and go from there. What a lesson for a young mind: conquest, war, domination.

Within a year or so, I got cool...but James didn’t. He’d linger on the fringes of my group...never fully accepted: too short, not a good enough athlete. The only things truly cool about him were his long hair and the fact that his older sister was…

So there was James...running for the train. It’s the N train now. Back then, it was the RR or “double R” as we called it. He reached the top of the stairs and made a pretty graceful jump in through the doors. He looked sort of like a hurdler: one foot in front, one behind. A different kind of risk...and all appeared well in his 15-year-old world.

In a moment of unexpected synchronicity, however, his rear foot was a fraction of a second too late. The thin doors closed perfectly on the sole of his left shoe...rendering James horizontal three feet high in the air: parallel to the filthy subway car’s floor.

What were the odds?

We all watched as his books flew from his hands as he reflexively broke his fall. James landed on his palms and belly...his foot breaking free from the door’s grasp as the train pulled out. He looked around sheepishly, humiliated in front of so many fellow students, grabbing his books and shuffling into a corner. I don’t think he saw me and I made no move to comfort him.

Peer pressure being what it is, I didn’t want to risk being associated with him.

The End

Who else has something to confess?

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Is this your min-key?
Adopt-a-pet here:
http://bunnyherolabs.com/adopt
(Thanks, James)

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Does IBM stand for “Inhuman Bastards & Motherfuckers”?
http://tinyurl.com/bpu3e

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George Santayana sez:
“To fight is a radical instinct; if men have nothing else to fight over they will fight over words, fancies, or women, or they will fight because they dislike each other’s looks, or because they have met walking in opposite directions.”