Paradise

"Outta my way!"

I didn't have time to react to the oncoming freight train of a person behind me before I was knocked down by either an incredibly dainty man or an incredibly husky lady. It didn't matter, because as I was suspended in the dreadful moment after you fall and before you hit the ground, I didn't have to know who they were to mutter swears about their mother under my breath.

I mean, for all I knew, their mother was a perfectly delightful woman or a nun or something; that didn't make the linoleum sting any less when I fell into an undignified heap in the middle of the ointment aisle of an overcrowded Walmart.

Furthermore, I didn't have to know who they were to know what they were: one thread in a seemingly endless string of reasons that I was leaving the city and never looking back. Ever.

I recall once telling a dear, dear friend of mine, "If I ever leave, chicken out, and try to come back to Cincinnati, I want you to smother me with a Pillow Pet."

He replied, while casually flicking hair out of his eyes, "Nah, not worth the jail time."

Not, I feel inclined to point out, 'oh, I would miss you too much, Alex!' nor, 'but you have so much ahead of you, Alex!' not even a feeble, 'I dunno, murder seems a little sketchy, Alex'.

Not worth the jail time.

I don't really care if you kick the bucket via sparkly unicorn, but could you please do it in a way that doesn't inconvenience me? Thanks.

 I mean, I would love to help out, but I sort of have a lot on my plate, what, with the international pastry club and all.

I can make a mean croissant platter for your wake!

And thus, the thread spun thicker and thicker. Little things like this piled up: no seats left in the restaurant, that toddler on the bus that always gave me dirty looks, the odd smell perpetually hanging in the air: car exhaust mixed with broken dreams.

By the end of my senior year of high school, I had saved up enough money to hop a flight to the least offensive state I could find and never look back, so long as I ate ramen noodles for the remainder of my earthly existence.

Eventually, I settled on the teeny-tiny town of Paradise, Rhode Island. My logic: when do you hear about anything bad--or good for that matter--happening in Rhode Island? As a matter of fact, I entirely forgot that it existed in the third grade, which led to a ninety-eight on my states quiz and an embarrassing debate with my teacher.

In my defense, it's microscopic.

There was something so utterly pretentious about living in a state like that, and I can't even explain how appealing that was to me at the time. Yeah, I live in this place called Rhode Island, you probably haven't heard of it.

And Paradise itself was quaint, just what I needed.

The night that I landed, I stopped by the local Walmart to pick up a few necessities that I couldn't take on the plane, because I was obviously plotting world domination with only a value bottle of shampoo to aid me in my ascension to glory. The airlines didn't pity my tight financial situation, but I don't suppose informing miffed tourists that, no, you cannot bring your prized scissor collection onto this airplane for hours on end paid well, either.

Also, you make a lot of sharp-object-wielding people angry.

Anyway, I was in the middle of the delicate process of opening up the shampoo bottles enough to smell them, but not enough to have to buy them when I heard... it.

The kind of thing that could certainly never happen in Paradise, of all places.

"Outta my way!"

As I was suspended in the dreadful moment after you fall and before you hit the ground, only one thought was running through my mind:

At least Cincinnati had a mall.