Laughter

One morning when I was walking to work, I slipped on some ice and did one of those attempted corrections. My right foot went up in front of me, somewhere near my stomach, but, rather than pitching backward, my left foot compensated to hold me to the ground. But on the icy sidewalk my left foot slipped backward, propelling me forward, and I fell face-first into a snowbank on the front lawn of my neighbour Mr Wyznicki’s house.

Literally face-first. I was up to my neck in snow. I pictured myself, my head buried in the snow, my ass sticking up in the air, my legs dangling and waving like an overturned beetle. And that made me laugh. I had to spit out some snow.

I felt someone grab my shoulders and pull me out of the snowbank. The good samaritan turned out to be another neighbour, Fritz. He was chuckling a little, and said, “What happened to you?”

“I wiped out,” I said. “Winter casualty. I’ve lived in this country only forty years so I’m not used to ice yet.”

Fritz…