Blake Schwendiman's Blog and Blook

Clutching my seventy-five cent deli corn dog, my body hanging precariously in mid air, I realized that time had stopped – which was convenient because it gave me both the opportunity to reflect on the past and to anticipate the near future with clarity. The past centered on a single decision that I was very quickly beginning to regret. The future held pain – at the moment that time froze I was still uncertain about the exact level of pain forthcoming, but I was sure that there would be pain.

Just moments earlier, I and my best friend stood at the top of the stairway that led to the basement cafeteria in the Madison Junior High school. It was winter in Rexburg, Idaho which meant that the temperature was only slightly above absolute zero and that there was plenty of snow and ice to turn an otherwise unremarkable stairwell into something resembling a luge track.

We had just visited the Rexburg Food Center delicatessen from which I had purchased the aforementioned corn dog. Although I was not particularly fond of corn dogs, this particular dog represented the entirety of my lunch money for the day and was therefore something of a treasure at the time.

It was initially our plan to return to the Junior High school with our feast and eat with the regulars at the cafeteria and socialize. I use the term socialize loosely as at the time I actually only had one friend and he was with me. I learned later in life that a five-foot one inch tall, one hundred thirty-five pound boy wearing the same pair of Lawman jeans (upheld by a belt sporting my first name) every day of eighth grade has approximately as much social appeal as a dirty gym sock. At the time however, I had no such information and was prepared to break into the social scene by impressing my classmates by pointing out the superiority of my non-cafeteria corn dog.

We surveyed the stairs for a moment. If we went around the school and through the front doors, we might miss the opportunity to flaunt our spoils. The stairwell, however, was completely frozen – it had become a perfectly smooth, forty-five degree ramp of ice. Recently however, some sadist had chipped away at the ice leaving half-inch steps available all the way down the flight. To a thirteen-year-old boy, that seemed reasonable enough.

I remember taking one last glance down at the cafeteria. The windows looking outward were filled with classmates. I decided to forego the handrail just in case any one of them might look out and see me clutching it for safety as if I were incapable of descending stairs like a man. Fortunately for me, a split second later, I no longer had to worry about whether anyone was going to see me – it was clear that they all would.

As I stepped down toward the first partially-revealed step, all of the physical laws to which I had grown rather accustomed were replaced by the physical laws of Looney Tunes. Rather than simply sliding down the ramp, my body lurched forward and outward so that I was parallel to the ground, but still several feet from it. It was at that moment that time stopped and I was granted a moment of reflection.

I suppose that some small alterations to my decisions could have prevented what happened next, but at the time I was able to fully evaluate those conditions, I was no longer capable of changing them.

When the earth finally rushed upwards and collided with my body it did so with enough force to completely knock the breath out of my lungs, but not quite enough to knock the corn dog out of my fist. Aware that I had just fallen before a large crowd of onlookers, I had the good sense to immediately jump to my feet and pretend that nothing had happened. I entered the cafeteria and found a quiet corner in which I could weep and learn to breathe again.

Two consolations comforted me in my lunchtime recovery: first, I was so concerned that I might die before I regained my breath that I never heard the laughter of my classmates and second, my fat-kid instincts kicked in during my fall and saved my corn dog from utter destruction. I still had lunch.