One Event, Five Descriptions

1)

 

Mack was a hustler, always bumping into people on the street as he tried to read his morning paper and walk at the same time.  He refused to slow down for anyone or anything.  Too many things to do, he would say, and life is too short.  This morning was no different, except in consequence.  While exiting the city bus, he missed a step and tumbled to the pavement.  Embarrassed and shaken up, he looked around to see if anybody-anybody important, at least-had noticed his fall.  Of course, everybody had seen it, and it had caused quite a stir.  A young blonde woman in professional attire, looked at him in amusement, a tiny pucker somewhere between a smirk and a smile.

 

2)

 

Maximillian J. Hollandsworth, the Third, developed a reputation about the community as an exceedingly difficult man to converse with; his obligations at a given time always exceeding his friends in terms of quantity, he was singularly unable to focus his attention on any one person or object for more than a few moments.  This facet of his personality poorly equipped him with the faculties required of a strong driver: he was eternal, both in his suffering and his insufferability.  The city bus provided a much more feasible alternative, allowing him to both peruse the previous day’s events and return the morning’s phone messages simultaneously-much to the ire of those unfortunate enough to be in his adjacency.  Unparalleled in reading efficiency, Maximillian would routinely finish the first three sections of the Wall Street Journal before reaching his stop at Chesterton Station, a typical commute lasting approximately eighteen minutes.  On one particular morning, the bus reached its terminal two minutes early, which gave Maximillian cause to smile.  He rose and began to proceed to the front exit of the bus; he kept reading, as he had nearly finished the third section of his newspaper.  Just as Maximillian began the first sentence of the penultimate paragraph, he stepped out when he should have stepped down and collapsed into a pile of flesh, fine wool, and newspaper.  Bugger, he thought, as he looked around and gathered up his scraps of newspaper.  Despite, being the universe’s perfect expression of perpetual motion, he stopped.  For the first time, he noticed a beautiful young professional, who was smiling at his mishap.  Embarrassed, he stooped to gather the rest of his scraps and hurried away.

 

3)

 

Must hurry.  Can you not move any faster?  This bus makes me want to rip out each one of hairs on my thickly laden head.  What a waste.  Imagine, to squander the two minutes that this bus granted us.  This bus, not just on time for once, but ahead of schedule.  Look here.  The damn high-risk debt market is still plummeting.  The Journal says that it could cause a recession.  A recession?  I think not.  I think-God damn it!  My fucking arm must be broke.  Did I miss a step or did somebody push me?  Oh, look at this paper, ruined.  Son. Of. A. Bitch.  Did anybody see this?  Obviously.  Everybody is staring at me.  Move it, you sons of retarded monkey fucks.  Look at this bitch, chuckling at me.  Like you’re so much better than me.  Move out of my fucking way, I need to get to work.

 

4)

 

Gather ‘roun’, kiddos.  And bite yer tongues, I’m a’go’n'a tell ya a story ‘bout how yer great-gran’pap met his wife o’ sixty years and o’ seven babies, including yers truly.  Y’see, yer gran’pap, ‘fore he seen the light, was city-folk.  A’bustlin’ roun’ the Big Apple like a ‘coon hound after a jack-rabbit.  E’ery mo’nin’, he’d a’git his stories from the bus’ness paper while ridin’ the bus to work, yammerin’ to hisself the whole time about the stock-market this, debt that.  Oh, how he did love those papers-like a piglet in fresh-laid shit.  Well, then, on this one partic’lar mo’nin’ he found hisself antsin’ to get off the bus so’s he could get on to work, up on the Wall Street.  But, he a’couldn’t keep his’n eyes off his stories.  Well, the result’n’ mess is that he found hisself ass over elbows on ground after fallin’ down them there steps.  Well, he looked up, about as beet red as a whore in church, and a’who was it he seen?  Why this b’utif’l wom’n all drussed up like a bus’ness man, I reckon about the only woman on the whole of Wall Street.  And she was a’smilin’ at him, he bein’ all lit up like a deer in headlights from the ‘barrassment.  Don’t you know, from then on, they didn’ forget the other.

 

5)

 

This is the first day of the rest of your life, Mack told himself as the bus pulled into the station.  He checked his watch, delighting in the fact that he was early.  If I can just finish this section of the paper, he thought, I’ll be off to a fine start.  Caught between thoughts of billable hours from his daydreams and the realities of the struggling debt markets in the paper in front of him, he failed to find the step as he tried to exit the bus.  End over end, he fell until he collapsed in a heap.  At first, he felt only disappointment: What a way to squander a head start, he thought.  Then he looked around and saw all eyes on him, and some mouths agape.  He felt the heat first build up behind his ears and then spread to the rest of his face.  Oh Lord, he thought as his eyes fell upon a striking blonde professional, attired in a snug-fitting jacket and business slacks that showed her curves.  She was smiling at him, or was it leering, he thought.  Not today, he thought, gathering his scraps meekly and shuffling away; for once, slow and deliberate.