Born at the Wrong Time

Fifteen and with no access to a car had he known how to drive one, Kevin rode his bike down the busy street, late again for rehearsal. Biking was faster than public transportation, but holding his trombone case while trying to bike one-handed in traffic was hard, and he nearly toppled over when he saw her across the street. A gangly six foot tall boy, Kevin was all knees and elbows on his bike. He saw Ruby every day on his way home from school, but by the time he got off the bus, she was always gone. This was the first time he had seen her somewhere he could actually get her attention. So he was trying to find a way across the street and looking in the opposite direction, when the driver's side door of the parked car he was riding toward opened.

Always in the wrong place at the wrong time, Kevin crashed into the open door at the worst possible moment. His trombone case flew out of his hand, landed on the road, and was crushed under the wheels of the bus he had been biking next to. Kevin flipped over the door, got separated from his bike in mid-air, and bounced off of the hood of the parked car. He landed on the sidewalk, where he shredded the skin of his palms and knee and split his chin open on the pavement. That knocked him out. Had he been conscious, he would have seen his bike soar over his head and smash through the glass door of the building across from him.

A minute later, Kevin became fuzzily aware of someone shaking him. He felt irritated that they were trying to wake him up. It took him another minute to remember where he was. When he became cognizant of the fact that he was lying on the ground and there was a crowd of people gathered in a circle around him, staring at him, he got up too quickly. A couple of people asked him if he was okay. Rattled and embarrassed, Kevin told them he was fine.

"That guy just drove off. Barely even checked to make sure you were still alive," a woman with several small children tugging at her said.

"Did anyone get the plates?" a serious-looking man asked.

No one had.

"Some people."

"I just don't know what's happening to this city."

The onlookers all gradually dispersed, except for the middle-aged woman who had woken Kevin. She had long, black hair and looked like a witch. She brushed his sweaty, shaggy brown hair out of his eyes and examined the cut on his chin. Then she helped him up. She laid her hand on his back and steered him toward a nearby store. Kevin was tall, but she was taller.

"It's okay. I'm okay," he said. "Where's my bike?"

"Inside," the woman replied.

Kevin wondered if he had been out for longer than he thought, until she pointed out the smashed-in glass door next to the store. He peered into the entrance hallway of the three-storey, brick building and saw his bike, bent and twisted out of shape, lying halfway down the hall.

"Leave it for now," the woman said. "Come with me."

Kevin noticed a small placard lying in the pile of broken glass that read, "Fortune Teller In Back."

"Are you a fortune teller?"

"Yes," the woman said.

She was dressed in the sort of long, flowing layers of gypsy clothes he would have expected of a fortune teller.

"Is this your store?" he asked her, as she led him into the store next to the broken glass door.

"No."

Inside, the store smelled overwhelmingly of spices, and a little sour; like dumpsters on a warm day. It appeared to have no organizational system of any kind. Bananas were next to diapers and batteries, which were next to unlabeled bulk bins of spices. The clutter was overwhelming to him in his lightheaded state, and he found it hard not to bump into things as they walked.