the sun, the sandwich, and the Samaritan

April 29, 2003

The Sun, the Sandwich, and the Samaritan

By George K. George

“Oh nice. The sun is showing itself today.”

In half stride he prepared to quicken his pace and soak in some of the welcome shine of the sun. He looked down at the cracked sidewalk and admired the sparkling sand and intense glow of the reflection and refraction. The warmth overwhelmed his until recently chilled body. The hairs on his exposed arms raised and relaxed. Shivers raced down his back. Spring must surely be on its way.

If he wasn’t on his way to the bus stop at this time like every other day of the workweek, he thought he might call that long brunette who worked in receiving. A sunny day would be just the alibi to put an end to the long-range admiration of the creature and take her to the park for an ice cream cone, corn dog or some other food of the junk genre. He envisioned a peeling bench, a shady oak. Perhaps there would be music from a street performer, or one of those people who cover themselves in reflective paint and stand perfectly still while people stare and giggle. They would throw some money in his hat, and talk about how they hated their boss. She’d laugh at his imitations of the man. He smiled at these thoughts, but stopped short of accusing himself of daydreaming.

He lifted his lagging foot and shut his eyes. He turned his head in the direction of the intense light. He resolved to make plans with the woman in receiving while this weather lasted. He was one half of a block from the bus stop. The paisley behind his closed eyes became bright red. His hair caught fire, and a fraction of a second later he was no more than a sooty shadow on the adjacent building to his path.

“This sandwich is almost too big for my mouth.”

The things we do for discounted fries, he thought. The smooth jazz reached a climactic tenor sax solo. A dollop of mayonnaise-drenched iceberg lettuce fell out of the sandwich, but was caught by the napkin in his lap. Good table manners pay off even while eating alone, he decided. This sandwich really was too much. And it’s not as if the picture on the menu board was painting a bloated image of its immensity. Though, the pictures are always a more pristine version of the end product. The ham or roast beef is perfectly folded. The bacon layered in the most pleasing way. Ketchup and mustard just barely peeks out from the bun, and always reflecting light.

He reached for the uncovered drink of Coca-Cola to his right. He despised straws. They were so childish. “Maybe I should have ordered onion rings.” He ate this way so much, he needed to mix it up once in a while. But he always entered the food court ravenous, and had meant to, but never had ventured to try the veggie burger. As the grease bubble expanded in his belly after each meal, he vowed to try it the next time, but never succeeded in ignoring the pangs for something more beefy. Even the slightly more health conscious hot ham and cheese or, proclaimed lean, roast beef were crossed off by the time he made it to the cash register.

Coca-cola dribbled down from the corner of his mouth onto his lapel. “Damn.” he cursed, and felt the urge to clear a great deal of phlegm from his chest. He heard a rumbling, but had not begun to release his cough. The rumbling grew louder, faster. The enormous shopping mall that housed the restaurant he sat in was sent tumbling like a castle of dominos. He was luckily killed in the collapse and did not suffer under meters of rubble, like many others did.

“Oh dear!”

She ran over to the boy, dropped her purse, and knelt down beside him. She asked if it felt broken. She remembered to do nothing but make him feel comfortable. She had seen him fly off his skateboard, still rolling down the middle of the street. She looked around for help. She saw no one. She told him it was going to be all right, and looked for an open shop with a telephone. She started across the street.

The redness in his face was a combination of embarrassment for falling the way he did, this middle-age woman coming to his rescue, blood rushing around from the injury, and the red that was usually showing on his face. He was beginning to go into shock. He looked at his arm and threw up.

The woman rushed out of the corner store, and shook her head thinking about the way the board had flown out from under the boy. He must have been four feet in the air. The street was a bit of a corridor. Before the woman was halfway across it, a plume of atomic fire sent her, the boy, the cars, and everything else that littered the street flying like toys for several tens of blocks. The city, as well as the boy, now had more dire problems.