Have you ever been transported to another dimension? A dimension not only of sight and sound, but of mind? To a mystifying land of imagination? Well if you have, then you were probably in the Twilight Zone. I think I was there.
Hear me out: I walked in the park a few weeks back when I saw a boy, 2 years old, maybe a small 3-year-old. He was at street level, while I was in the park below. He was going to roll down the curved incline into the park on a three-wheeled scooter.
I was alarmed because he seemed too young to pull off that feat, but his mother sat on the grass and watched him, so I figured ‘we’ll see what happens.’
As I neared the spot where our paths would intersect, he launched himself down the slope. That scooter’s wheels lit up in psychedelic colors as he sped down the walk faster than I anticipated. The scooter whirred and got louder the faster he went.
The kid almost hit me, but I moved out of the way, and he swept behind me onto the grass where his horrified mother yelled at him. She apologized to me several times. I told her it was no big deal, but I acknowledged the little bugger startled me.
I continued my walk. I could hear the mother, who seemed quite stressed, still scolding the boy. I was probably 50 yards down the way when I heard the scooter coming. I glanced back, and Shorty was coming fast on my side of the concrete walk; I moved to the other side.
He caught up and just as he passed me, he swung his scooter around in a perfect sweep and blocked my way.
He looked me in the eyes and said, “Step aside.”
This from a toddler?
Now you can understand why I believe I was in the Twilight Zone. I was certain then that the aspiring hooligan tried to hit me when we first crossed paths, and his mother knew it.
Well, another man might have been annoyed.
Another man might get mad.
But this man laughed and laughed and laughed.
The runt moved on down the line on his turbocharged scooter, wheels flashing in the distance, his anxious mom left far behind.
Submitted for your consideration: Space and time conspired to bring a sinister tot with preternatural scooter skills face to face with a man simply out for a walk. In a showdown, laughter is the weapon that thwarts the tyke’s malicious intentions.
It happened here, where cotton once grew, in the middle of a vast desert, on a speck of a planet called Earth, where a portal at street level opens into the Twilight Zone.
David Madrid
Contact: David Madrid
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