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Treatise on Human Nature
"Look out mister!"
The little kid cried out, but too late.
Way too late. Dumb kid.
Fob clattered to the ground under the onrushing shopping cart, which no one'd thought to say anything about until much, much too late.
And the damn thing kept rolling downhill with him, pushing him before on the slick city streets. He slammed his arms to his side, to keep his gun in its' holster, and had to slam both of them because he got twisted around by the shopping cart and couldn't quite remember, in the middle of his fall, which side his gun was holstered on. But he did remember to make sure it didn't go flying around for any Tom, Dick, or Harry to pick up, because last time that happened he almost saw a saint kill a clown. The right end goal, sort of, just the wrong means. Very wrong. If only they'd teach saints how to shoot properly.
He twisted and turned as the shopping cart bore him down on the curb as the street curved down and to the left. He felt a bit like the seals at the zoo, with their slippery slide playground thing, that went right into the pool with a little raised bit at the end so they could lazily twist and turn in the air for all to see before plopping down into the water below. With a good deal more gravel and oil on his particular slide. And a shopping cart chasing him down, which they almost never did at the zoo anymore.
There wasn't too much more thought about the seals than that, because the shopping cart full of what seemed to be loose (and soggy) cabbage slammed him into the curb, and he stopped twirling so much. The one wheel that had been stuck on the way down the hill jarred loose at the bottom, and squeaked round and round feebly a couple of times before things quieted down, in that lump at the bottom of the hill.
From his postion under the cart, Fob could see three clowns hopping through the windows of an old Ford Taurus, and the fourth, slipping the driver's side door open and leaping inside as the one on the passenger side threw the key in the ignition and got the car started up.
"Damn," he muttered.
The little kid, being a little kid and not fully in control of his limbs, windmilled to a stop somewhat harder than was comfortable for everyone observing against the wall of the corner store at the bottom of the hill. Most people looked away, and Fob, lying in the gutter under a shopping cart of cabbage, managed to look down a little bit, and attempted to wiggle his shoulder. The shopping cart sagged, as if it suddenly realised it had traveled a hell of a lot further than was probably good for it.
"Mister?" he said.
Fob tried staring at a swatch of blue he could make out, through the cabbage and the wire mesh of the cart, which he thought might be one of his arms.
"Mister," the kid circled round to the swatch Fob was staring at and tugged gently.
Unfortunately, gently to this kid wasn't nearly gentle enough for someone whose arm was sticking out through the side of a shopping cart, having been ridden by it down a hill and into a gutter. Fob gasped, and looked up at the kid.
The kid stared back at Fob momentarily, and then looked back up the hill. And pointed.
Which is when Fob saw the pigeons walking down the hill, towards him.
disclaimer:
Continuing, still, our recent form, we present to you another excerpt from a novel by someone who's written for Sane Magazine over the course of our ten year plus history. This is an excerpt from William Murphy's excellent Curious, a novel.
What more could you ask for!?
What? Did you say a free copy of Curious, a novel?
Well, listen, we give you the magazine each week free... we've got to eat, you know...
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