Author’s Note: I wrote this journal entry a couple of years ago by my personal reckoning. I no longer have any idea “when” it actually happened. That’s not important. What is important is that it convinced me to get back to my roots and be me again.
Spent the night partying with some old friends in geosynchronous orbit. Nice place, really, even if the decorator was of the “patchwork” school of design. Most of the place is beige, but the hallways are white with little flecks of colored energy zipping around them, and the cabins are sky blue.
Not complaining; these folk put on one seriously entertaining bash.
Speaking of: nature called, as it is wont to do. As I was headed for the head, a cosmic wave pitched the ship, and I am stating for the record that everything which happened next was entirely my fault.
I reached out a hand to steady myself and instead of grabbing one of the many convenient bulkheads, I grabbed the shoulder of a guy named “Walter.”
Walter, as it turns out, is one of those people who just don’t like to be touched.
He hauled back a fist like a Christmas goose and used it in a not entirely unsuccessful attempt to send my nose on a wonderful journey of discovery out the back of my skull.
Totally my fault. Not mad; can’t be mad. I’m too impressed. Not only did he send me sailing fourteen feet to crash through a lovely bunch of wooden cabinets, but the punch was so deft he clobbered me right out of my trousers, which remained right next to him.
And as I lay there in a pile of splinters with blood escaping my nostrils and a piss fountain streaming four feet in the air from elsewhere in my anatomy, I could only laugh.
Had to; if I didn’t, I’d have to cry at how utterly boring I had become.
Once upon a time, this story would have involved a parade of hookers, a psychopath with a meat cleaver, several hundred thousand dollars in property damage, and some morally ambiguous things that I couldn’t talk about!
Now look at me. This journal entry might as well be a Church bulletin.
Henceforth I will put some pep back in my step. I’m busier than I used to be, but business is no excuse for dullness! The heck with fear… dullness is the true mind-killer.
Many thanks to you, Walter, for putting me back on the True Path.
And, uh, sorry if my face scratched your knuckles.