The Trip

I have recovered from my 24 hour illness. It always surprises me how our bodies can seem so completely broken, as if they will never work properly again then you sleep for five hours and it's like nothing happened. Yesterday, I could barely stand up without holding a wall for support and now today I went for a little hike through the Heath. Even thinking back to my throat abscess, once that baby was popped, the healing began at such a rapid pace.

So today I felt well enough to venture through the city to Hampstead Heath. On my journey there I tried to pass what looked like a very annoying family group. They had spread themselves so wide, no human could force their way past their human road block. This meant I was walking directly behind and next to the mum of the family. The father and the seven year old boy were holding hands in front of us and they had another little boy who was about four, running up ahead.

The dad and the boy started to goof around, bumping into each other and nudging each other playfully while still holding hands. Then, as if in a Charlie Chaplin film, the dad does a huge exaggerated leg placement to mock-trip his child. Only it backfired. Well I guess not really backfired...it just did what a trip is meant to do - cut another human down.

The boy didn't see the Three-Stooges-Style trip and also must have an extremely poor centre of gravity. He fell. Hard. The worst part is that the dad really didn't see the fall coming, so his hand that was holding his son's, couldn't even react fast enough to right the boy. Instead it only tied up the boy's hand, preventing him from being able to put his arms out to try to break his fall. Since I was riding the family's ass trying to get around, I was directly in the thick of it all. It was one of those blessed moments in life where you know that mental image will be with you forever in a bank of clips you can draw from whenever you are having a bleak day and need a good chuckle. The kind of instant replay in your head that always makes you laugh, even if you are in public and will look like an idiot laughing at nothing. But it's not nothing, is it? It's one of the funniest moments you have ever witnessed.

The only thing rivalling the picture in my mind, is the sound imprinted on my auditory memory that came along with the fall. The kid fell like a sack of potatoes. The thud of his dead weight from his lower body cannot even be described. It was the classic fall sound of heavy body meeting concrete. He also fell face-first into the pavement. I had to somewhat stop so-as not to smash into the back of the dad, but I felt it cruel to linger too long looking, especially since I was beaming at this experience and everyone in the family was in hysterics. I don't think I saw any blood when I was staring directly at the kid's face, but maybe it just hadn't come yet.

The mum, who was next to me was swearing at the dad for tripping the boy. The father looked so shocked and guilty for injuring his first born and heir to whatever land he owns. The younger boy had stopped, turned and was looking just as thrilled as I did, certainly he and his poorly coordinated brother do not see eye-to-eye on most things.

I know it might sound cruel to take such joy in the fall of a child, but I assure you if anyone falls around me, I will be just as pleased. This includes if I fall, as I have many a time, it will likely end up being written about on this blog (as it already has been). I'm sure the boy is fine now, and if they have a good sense of humour, they are probably giggling about it at this moment. If they don't have a good sense of humour, then perhaps the dad is on the couch and the mum is calling her divorce lawyer. Either way, I know next time I'm feeling a little low, I will be recalling that mental youtube clip to help cheer me up. Probably made it to top five funniest things I have ever witnessed. Well played dad, well played.