Epic-ish

Jackson Lamb peered at me over his glasses, farted, wiggled his big toe, and grunted… „Just like River. The exact same. He’ll fit right in. You are accepted”

And looking at myself, I can see why…

…The human body relies on a framework of two hundred and six bones, held together by joints famous for being glitchy, prone to cracking, creaking, and snapping whenever they’re in less-than-mint condition.

Damn, I wonder what shape mine are in?

This skeleton is wrapped in quivering meat, inflated with air sacs, and stuffed with a Gordian knot of plumbing full of bubbling acids and pressurized gases. It’s sprayed with enzymes and solvents pumped out by rows of dark, tenderized lumps of genetically reprogrammed flesh layered along the spine. All you have to do is squeeze it a little too hard, and the whole thing spills left and right.

And who’s gonna clean that up?

That’s exactly what I was pondering as I was flying—and the flight promised to be a long one.

I had time.

It arrived, or rather rolled up, simply enough.

When I dropped my car at the service center and realized I wasn’t getting a loaner (dream on!), and since taxi drivers have slapped an embargo on serving „the gray-haired guy in sneakers” after the last incident, I decided to take a scooter.

Well, I’m not walking, am I?

One of those electric city things.

Tiny wheels, instability level: Grandmaster (thanks to the narrow handlebars), 25 km/h, and zero steering precision.

I can ride anything. It’ll do.

On the way, I made the essential urban-male supply run: beer in glass, sliced bread, six eggs, and two frozen pizzas.

I secured the fragile items safely in a bag slung loosely across my back and side, while the pizzas—in their handy but oversized boxes—I placed in front of my feet on the scoot-deck.

Chill, they’ll be fine. This tiny-wheeled contraption is designed to make it physically impossible for a man my age to pull off Bunny Hops, Nose Manuals, or any other One-Handers.

Oh, back in the day? Sure! But now?

You stand, you kick, you go straight. What could possibly… roll wrong?

I was riding with the boxes pinned down by my shoe in the front and that damn bag on my half-back, when suddenly—probably from the vibrations—the pizzas started to slide.

Correcting with my leg did nothing, except slightly disturb my already fragile scooter-librium (scooter + equilibrium).

And then, things—like the pizza—started slipping and happening very fast.

The wobble from below transferred upward, and the handlebars, in their infinite narrowness, offered zero room for correction.

I don’t even know when—fighting for a shred of stability (I gave up on life stability long ago; I’d settle for momentary scooter stability) and trying not to lose the cargo—I veered off the sidewalk and onto the street.

Naturally from a height, over the curb, and—how to put this—as usual, Murphy’s Law kicked in.

The law states: „If something can go wrong, it will.”

If a slice of bread has butter on it and falls, it will land butter-side down. And if you might fall off a scooter but the situation isn’t 100% certain yet, there will definitely be a sewer manhole to help you out.

They place them every half kilometer, usually clogged with trash and the size of a postage stamp… And there it was. Yes, it was exactly there… and pristine.

Murphy, you dick!

And that’s when the scooter, blocked by the manhole cover, stopped dead. Its suddenly canceled kinetic energy transferred directly into my mass, and that is precisely when I began my flight over the cuckoo’s… handlebar nest.

Whether I wanted to or not, I had plenty of time to think about the body.

About the goods on my half-back, and about the fact that I was flying over a typically busy street, straight for the middle of it.

And whether I’d written a will, and if so, who I stuck with paying off my debts.

I didn’t think about what they’d write on my tombstone; that was settled ages ago: „What are you staring at? I’d rather be lying on a beach too.”

And suddenly, Murphy must have been called away on other business, because at the tail end of my flight, the situation shifted.

No, I didn’t sprout wings, the fire department didn’t inflate a cushion (though they had time!), and the priest—fresh from blessing the seasonal Lumberjack Burger to inaugurate the cult at the nearby McDonald’s—didn’t show up to anoint me with oils.

I didn’t wake up, either.

My body just took matters into its own hands. It cut off my useless brain and executed a perfectly drilled, classic shoulder roll.

Turns out the body thought of everything, because it even rolled over the other shoulder—the one without the grocery bag.

When, immediately after the roll, I sprang into a crouch—like a commando with shattered legs after a failed jump with an unopened parachute—I instantly spun around, bracing for impact with a vehicle.

That’s when I noticed: the scooter lying neatly on its side by the curb, the pizza boxes next to it, and no car approaching from any direction.

The street was indeed frozen, terrified, and silent… but empty.

When I somehow rose from the dead, a guy with a dog walked up to me:

„…Man, that was an epic-ish wipeout. At one point I started thanking God there’s a funeral home right here, so we wouldn’t have to carry the corpse too far.”

P.S. No products were harmed in the making of this stunt. The beer didn’t spill, the flour didn’t burst, and the eggs didn’t break.

That’s how you live!

Fuck. Unfortunately… on I go.