A Year of Stories (Collection Two)

Excerpts From the Journal of a Minor God

Monday

I left my house by the back gate, and walked through my neighbor's yard towards the park at the edge of town.

The sun was hot, the sky was clear, and the earth beneath my feet was moist and rich.

A Rottweiler who called himself the Prince of Spain, told me a clean joke about a squirrel who had lost his nuts.

I already knew the punchline, but I let him tell it anyway.

I laughed, he laughed, and we bid each other merry travels, as we walked in opposite directions.

The only people in the park were a man, a woman and a baby.

The man and woman didn't know about the baby yet, but they would, and then the man would paint the spare bedroom a color that he believed was cyan and she refused to call anything but blue.

They would be very happy...for a while, like most people.

When I told them this they smiled, so I smiled, and we both left the park in opposite directions.

Tuesday

I had ten phone calls with seven people.

Four ended in laughter.

Two ended in screams.

One ended in tears, of joy or of sorrow, I couldn't tell you.

Wednesday

I left my house through the front door.

There was a small child with a red bicycle, riding circles around the neighborhood.

He rode and he rode and he rode, so I stood there and watched him.

I watched as he hopped onto curbs and whipped past mailboxes, peddled hard across the asphalt, and spread his arms wide in open challenge to the Universe.

In sixteen years, four months, twelve days and fifteen hours, this same boy would be in a severe Motocross accident.

He would injure his Anterior Cruciate Ligament, Medial Collateral Ligament and the Medial Meniscus.

Doctors have a name for this sort of injury, they call it the Unhappy Triad, which seems to me like a bit of an understatement, considering that after that day, this boy would never ride again.

I watched this child until he wore himself out, then I walked over.