elsewhere everywhere

One time I walked into a building
mid-construction, and found stacks
of two-inch-tall-by-four-inch-wide
boards.

They were really long, and I was a child
at the time so I hit one of them with my
clenched fist about as solid and hard as
I was able, because I wasn't walking, but
running. I was chasing someone, or being
chased, but man - that wham right on the
stacked and packed ends of those boards! 

It really put paid to whatever I was doing
just then, and my whole hand was so tight
and clenched, hot and throbbing that I couldn't

unmake a fist.

I had to just keep it like that for the time being.
I showed the kid I'd been playing with. They
touched it gingerly. Looked at me like "it's
your hand." I was like I KNOW! Hurts like a
damn bandit caught red-handed in an ill-advised
burglary of the pain store! Got what I came for,
but damn if I know WHY. 

It hurt for days.

My fingers were not into unbending, or bending
again once unbent. I remember being in school
with this weird hand, thinking about the unbuilt
building (par-built, really) and how fun it all could
have been in there, if I didn't swing my arms with
such unfeigned enthusiasm, or had perhaps developed
more situational body awareness vis-a-vis surrounding
objects, or even - who knows?

Improved hand-eye coordination? Could have helped? 

It couldn't have hurt. Not any worse, anyway. What if
somebody had yelled "Think fast!" as I ran in, and a ball
was flashing towards my head? And both hands flew up
just in time - perfect catch! As I flew by the stacked boards,
not even realizing my close call. And - who threw the ball? 

There was no one there. It was my guardian angel, maybe.

But then I left the building and went home, and there was no
one, anywhere.
The earth
had been deserted, or everyone
snatched up - eaten by angels? I was
the only one left - or maybe in that moment, everyone
had been shunted aside, plunged into their own personal
parallel planet of endless solitude, doomed
to wander alone and eke out
an aching, sad lonely
existence 'til
death? 

All told,
I'll take it how it actually happened.
It doesn't make much of
a story,

but it's
a painful piece

of a pretty good life. Still. 

I keep thinking about that ball, 
and would I have caught it? How 
different everything would be