When he told people that he'd touched the Sun, they didn't believe him. Of course. Who would?
But the thing is, they never listened long enough to find out what he really meant. I had to listen, because I owed him.
I had touched the telephone wires. And not the insulated section, at that. I never could turn down a dare, I guess. Runs in the Paddok family genes, and I'm a Paddok man, through and through. So, I took a dare and shimmied up the metal rungs of the telephone pole. The wire was hot. I could feel it radiating, warning me not to touch it. I understood then why birds gather on these things in the winter months.
I laid both hands around the wire. Suspended in nothingness for an eternity that fit inside a second, and then I fell. I touched the wire and I thought I was going to die. I touched the wire and I thought I saw God. And then I fell.
When I opened my eyes, there he was. With freckles like flecks of mud and a gap between his two front teeth, I thought he was a child. Just a boy. But when he took me by the arm and hefted me to my feet, I realized that he was no kid. Not only was he a good man in this moment, but he was also my friend. My other friends had fled the scene; They probably thought I was a goner. When they ran off, they were no more my friends than that dratted telephone wire was. A friend gives you a hand even when you've done something stupid, don't he?
So I owed this young, freckle-faced Good Samaritan. We'd never met, but he'd been my friend when I hit the dust. He drove me to the hospital, grinning the whole way there and shakin' his head.
"That was a mighty dumb thing you done back there," he chuckled. "Wish I'd been around to see the whole thing."
YOU ARE READING
Touch the Sun
General Fiction"I had touched the telephone wires. And not the insulated part, at that." . . After a near-death experience, Jon Paddock decides to stop whiling his life away. Usually, you hear about people who jump on planes and fly to Spain, or people who quit...
