One of the Strange Things in Life

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Vincent came in and hit Smith on the head with the heavy board. Smith fell from his stool to the tile floor. Smith was sitting on the blue stool just before Vincent came in and hit him on the head with the heavy board. Smith had been sitting there for hours. Smith looked confortable and content, slouching there atop the blue stool with his small, weak smile. Smith was quiet the whole time he sat there before Vincent came in and hit him on the head with the heavy board.

When Vincent came in and hit Smith on the head with the heavy board, and when Smith fell to the tile floor, the blue stool Smith was sitting on popped out from under him. The stool and Smth fell at the same time, but the stool fell because Smith was falling. The stool looked sad, maybe even sadder than Smith, as they both lay there on the tile floor. I thought it was wrong for me to think that, and then wondered why I thought the stool lying there on the tile floor looked sadder than Smith lying there on the tile floor. I thought perhaps the stool lying there on the tile floor looked sadder than Smith lying there on the tile floor because the stool could not possibly know what had happened. The blue stool just lay there helpless and dumb. But Smith knew the risks of sitting on a stool included falling off the stool after being struck on the head with a heavy board. At least he should have known that was one of the possibilities. But the stool didn't know this was a possibility of being a stool. That's why I thought the stool lying there on the tile floor looked sadder than Smith lying there on the tile floor.

When Smith’s head hit the tile floor it sounded solid and heavy like a bowling ball hitting the tile floor. I thought it was strange to think his head sounded like a bowling ball when a bowling ball was so much like a person’s head to begin with. I thought it was strange, one of the strange things in life, that a bowling ball and a person’s head should be compared to each other in my mind at the moment Smith’s head hit the tile floor.

It bounced a little too, Smith’s head did, when it hit the tile floor. It bounced just a little, like a bowling ball would. And then I thought it was wrong of me to think so much of a bowling ball and the sound it would make against the tile floor, when it was really Smith’s head bouncing.

I looked at Vincent and wondered if he too thought Smith’s head sounded like a bowling ball. Then I thought it was strange and maybe even wrong to be thinking again of the bowling ball, when Smith’s head was much more serious than a bowling ball. Vincent just stood there, slouching a little, with the board hanging heavy in his hand.

Vincent stood there and swayed just a little as he looked down at Smith’s head and the blue stool. I looked at Vincent and thought the reason he swayed just a little was because he was tired and the board was heavy in his hand. He looked tired because of the way he stood there slouching a little with his shoulders rounded and his knees a little bent. He looked as if he was very heavy, as if he was a large man carrying around a great deal of weight. But Vincent was thin and would not weigh much if set on a scale.

I looked at the heavy board and wondered where it came from. It looked like it should have been somewhere else. It looked like it should have been part of something like an old ship or railroad car. The heavy board looked like it didn’t belong in Vincent’s hand and that it knew it didn’t belong. The heavy board gave the impression that it could not believe it just hit Smith so hard and square on his head. And then again I thought it was strange, one of the strange things in life, and maybe even wrong that I was thinking of the heavy board and how it looked and the out-of-place impression it gave me. The board was nothing but a dumb and heavy piece of wood and far less important than Smith’s head. I thought it was wrong for me to think of the heavy board and the bowling ball and the blue stool and the other things I was thinking when I should have been thinking of the much more serious and important matter of Smith’s sad head against the cold tile floor.

I looked at Smith lying there like a broken question mark with blood from his head spreading across the tile floor.

I remember Smith’s head reminding me of a bowling ball and the heavy board in Vincent’s hand reminding me of a rail car or the hull of an old, strong ship. I wondered why everything before me, as I stood near Vincent, reminded me of something else. I wondered why Smith’s head hitting the tile floor couldn’t simply be Smith’s head hitting the tile floor. I became angry not knowing why the board in Vincent’s hand couldn’t be more like a board in Vincent’s hand that just hit Smith solidly over the head. Why couldn’t things just be what they are? Why did they have to be like something else?

This is when I took three steps across the tile floor toward Vincent. I took the heavy board from Vincent’s loose grip, raised the board high and let it fall with all the strength I had, directly and squarely onto my own small head. Only then did everything become just what it was and nothing else.