"And Slowly I Turned ..."

"And Slowly I Turned ..."

by Doghouse, Susan, Fordy, Marie, and Jo

"And slowly I turned...." and caught my toe on a stupid crack in the pavement and twisted my knee and fell down just as she walked past me. I didn't know what was worse, her and her friends laughing, or the knife-like pain I was suddenly feeling in my left knee.

Then I realized that I recognized that laugh! It was Marie! Laughing at me.! I though wewere friends! In pain, I stretched out my hand.. hoping that she would take it... hoping that she would offer to help me up. Instead she glanced over at April, and the two of them walked away.. laughing... at my expense.

"I'll get them yet." I thought to myself as I rubbed my knee. Who do those two think they are anyway? Laughing at my mis-fortune. What if I'd broken my leg? or hit my head and gone into a coma?

A coma! No one ever thinks about those who fall on daily basis and end up left there, layingon sidewalks in comas! Its a country-wide dilemma. No, no..they just step over them and go about their day.

I slowly picked myself up with these disturbing thoughts running through my head. What if I had fallen into a coma? My will wasn't current and up-to-date - the whore that broke my heart would still get everything. And knowing her she'd authorize to pull the plug in a heart beat, just as long as she could still collect the life insurance. And my goldfish? Who would take care of him? And my apartment? It's a mess, and people would go in and think I lived in filth. Oh the horror of it all. As these morbid scenario's continued to play out, I slowly turned ...

And there in front of me was the answer to all my prayers, my hopes and my dreams! I couldn't believe it. If I had never fallen, I wouldn't have seen it...

Marie approached me, with her hand held out. Still with a sniker on her face, she tried to hide. She helped me up and and dusted me off. Marie is nice after all.

My heart palpitations over those nagging coma thoughts were starting to quiet down a little and despite the burning pain in my knee that maybe wasn't a sprain or twist, but something worse, like undiagnosed disease type or worse, I reached up and took Marie's outstretched hand. As she was slowly pulling me to my feet I saw a shadow move behind her. "Look out, Marie", I shouted.
And she slowly turned . . .

April looked very strange. Not like herself. April was drooling and had turned into a zombie. She reached for Marie and.....

. . . shee let go of my hand and I fell back and banged the back of my head against the pavement and it really hurt but I was thankful that my cap broke my fall and prevented what could have been a catastrophic head injury. I was worrying about the symptoms of a concussion and thinking I might be having some of them right now when April asked Marie why she jumped back so suddenly. "B...b...because you're a ZOMBIE!" "No, Marie, this is just my new Halloween costume! Don't you like it?" Just then a street vendor rounded the corner and . . .

He wanted to know what kind of cap that was that could break a fall like that. Maybe he could make a fortune selling them.

"Can I look at your cap? Did you make it or buy it?" He asked. But I felt dizzy (and a little embarrassed) when I started to explain that I had knitted it myself.

"Yeah, uh, I did, uh, wait, what did you ask?"

It's not that knitting myself a cap was a, well, unmanly, thing to do, but who's ever gonna say that a guy, whoever he is, who knits isn't maybe just a little bit femmy? Not me, which is why I make it a rule to never admit to doing the knitting. Even an excuse that it came from grandma is enough to bring about those looks, so my standard story is that I got it on sale at a camping store and I didn't even know why I had grabbed it today, you know how it is, right?, but this time, because of the dizziness and the knock on the head that hopefully wasn't suddenly bleeding internally right now, it made me tell the truth.

"About the hat. The knitting. That's pretty femmy that you knit, you know?"

"Yeah, it's a long story though and I really don't have a lot of time right now so if you could just give me a hand and help me back up to my feet I'd really appreciate it."

"Will you knit me one?"