A tribute to the last week or so in Gainesville

The sun was happy yellow in the pale blue sky. I sat happily upon a steep hill on my picnic blanket, smelling the flowers and feeling the breeze caress my skin. I watched as my friends and their friends and their friends' friends gleefully engaged in festivities. Games, fun, dancing, singing, playing instruments, sports, eating fun foods, and all other joyful things under the sun. I, too, had been playing and was now just taking a moment to observe my jovial surroundings. And it was great, and all was well.

Once I had soaked in enough, I was ready to go back and join in the fun again. I stood up, happy and eager as can be, and started to make my way down the hill. Little did I know, a small, slippery pebble obstructed my path. Before I could balance myself I was tumbling down the hill, gaining enormous velocity.

BAM! THUMP! SMACK! PING! BONG! WHAM! BLAM! POW!

Down and down I tumbled, rolled, and skidded. On the way down I knocked many people over, hit them, smacked them, whacked them, thumped them. Some people tried in vain to help me to stop, but their efforts were useless. The speed of my fall was too fast to intervene in. Others lay sprawled in the grass, bruised and confused. Literally, they had no idea what hit them. Still others merely watched the spectacle, unsure of what to think about it.

Eventually I hit the bottom of the hill and skidded to a stop. I cried. It hurt. I had bruises and scratches and wounds so deep. I attempted to tend my own wounds as a few people scrambled to my rescue with first aid kits.

A few minutes passed by before I was finally all bandaged up. I stood up, dusted myself off, and looked up at the hill and all of it's wreckage. And at that stupid, tiny pebble.

I didn't mean to do it. And I'm sure the pebble had no conscious malicious agenda, either. It just happened.

I'm sorry to everyone who was on the path of my clumsy fall.

Here is the happy ending I would like to see:

I walk back up the hill with my head up high, and no one else was hurt beyond repair. And the sun kept smiling in the pale blue sky as we carried on with our jovial festivities and all fun things under the sun.