Second Chance
Adrift in a tangle of bodies, a pedestrian is swept along with the flow. The flow splits into several streams and — amid the struggles of those many others — the pedestrian is swept toward a standing wave dividing two of those streams, and then sucked to the right around a vortex at the edge of the standing wave, and along with innumerable others — uncontrollably — to that extreme.
Careening off the banks — now devoid of the perception of possibilities lent from what had appeared a limitless expanse of the now past main channel, even though blinded by the crush of bodies there — rolling in the eddies and swifts along the edge of this increasingly narrow and turbulent stream — the pedestrian spied just ahead in the shadows, curiously stark against the hard-edged glistening wetness that closed in around it — a teddy bear — perched at what seemed to be an arm’s reach as the pedestrian rushed toward it.
In a lunge — a lunge possible only against those bodies that packed against every side — the pedestrian reached but fell inches short.
Spinning around within the tangle, watching the prize fall out of sight, the pedestrian felt an already floundering spirit sag into the loss of what might have been.
Just then, within the roar of the flow and the wind that swirled and engulfed them, a voice — sounding as if amplified through a bullhorn — came.
“Good try! You’ll get the next one!”
