Rick's head fell off, taking his friends completely by surprise. One moment he was smoking a cigarette, going on about the joys of those 1940's Indiana Jones hats, the ones that really had character, when a snap of tendon, crackle of bone and pop of noticeable proportions preceded the flying head which shot off and landed in a garbage can off to his right. What did you do in a situation like that? Rick himself remained standing as if nothing had happened, continued gesturing, driving home important points in a discourse, which, by the way, had effectively ended. Pete, who stood closest to his friend, freaked when Rick patted him on the shoulder, as Rick sometimes did when looking at him. Carl, to Rick's right had gone all giddy inside and could only think of how silly a hat would look tilted over his friend's neck. Bob looked over to the waste bin where the head had landed. He always liked to keep eye contact when someone spoke to him.
Story #138
2 comments:
I hate it when that happens. The abrupt pause, followed by that nervous shuffle of trying to pretend everything is fine... It's worse than finding out your fly is open twenty minutes into a conversation with someone you were hoping to get the phone number of (and the adage "advertising pays" doesn't work under real-life conditions). And then comes the question of how you reunite head to body, since it's only in movies that the head telepathically orders the body exactly how to retrieve it. Do you just pick it up, or do you politely say "whoops, you dropped something?" Is it polite -- more than courteous -- to presume the right to do it yourself? You might be thanked or you might offend the person, possibly even incur a lawsuit if that cat is really into 'personal space'. Would it be 'fresh' if you put the head of the woman you're speaking to back onto her shoulders, as though you'd taken some indecent liberty? These are the problems we face. Drop-offs seldom happen in the privacy of one's home; no, they always transpire in public situations. But I suppose nature intended it that way, similar to how you can't sneeze with your eyes open -- possibly no one would help you if you were home alone. It's only by social convention that we don't help people in public, and out of politeness we keep children and miscreants from running off with other people's lost heads.
The pace is simply brilliant! You make it sound so normal.. Yeah, my friends' heads just drop out like a meatball rolling out of my spaghetti onto the floor all the time!
On top of spaghetti, all covered with cheese....
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