Well I suppose I could go on about what's happened in the last 6 years. But I'm not here to catalogue my life. Might be interesting to my Mum if I did, but I hope to God she never reads this.
Not sure why either. I don't suppose it would be that terrible an occurrence.
Anyway here I am again. It seems to me that the most outwardly creative times that I have are always a result of my unhappiness. On a positive note, I haven't written anything for 6 years so that must mean I've been happy for a while right?
It doesn't really feel like that. Actually to be perfectly honest I think I've just had other things to do. But once every 6 years or so I suppose I run out of things to do to distract myself and end up here!
Apologies in advance but I haven't sat down here with a plan of action. I know in the past I've written about an event and maybe cast my feelings around the page about said event to let you all know why I feel the way I do. But really nobody actually enjoys people whining online. I didn't know this 6 years ago, because Facebook was in it's infancy. But I've had it for long enough for it to start primary school now and I have seen enough whiney posts about woe is me to know that it's not becoming.
So today I'm going to write a happy story! Maybe. We'll see. At any rate I'm not here to talk about why I'm here, and rest assured I am here because of an event that happened in my recent past on account of a girl. That's basically my motivation for everything I've decided. But I'm not going to talk about it.
Why do they call it chilli when you feel cold and yet chilli's are a food that burn? Hot burn too! These are the thoughts that keep me up at night.
Stacy was a middle aged man. Not a common name for a middle age man really. But he wasn't a common man so it worked out ok or that's how he saw it. He was unmarried and lived in a small town called Leonard. A town where they made great pies! That's not exactly how the town survived, but Stacey had lived in a few places before he became a resident of Leonard and he liked to think that the pies were the real secret to the success of the locale. I mention that Stacey was unmarried because it is relevant to the story. You see Stacy was a very attractive middle aged man. He hardly even looked middle aged. Maybe early 30's if you saw him from a distance.
He'd lived his whole life looking young for his age and had never really appreciated it until he moved to Leonard. It hit him one afternoon like a football in the face. Not his face though, that would be unpleasant. More like a football in his enemies face that he hadn't even had to kick. Just an instant realisation that something was well with the world. Why was it well now when it hadn't been before? Stacey didn't really know. But he was happy about it nonetheless. He was young looking, single and also rich! Oh, yes I probably should have mentioned that before also. Well now you know. Stacey was quite well off financially. In fact the reason behind that actually lead back to the fact that Stacey was actually very well off luckily. Luck. Not something that people generally associate as a personality trait had played a very strong role in the life of Stacey, he was young looking, fit, healthy and rich. And lucky.
Back when Stacey was in his early 20s he'd been invited to participate in a university study for the school's psychology department. You might have done things like this yourself if you ever went to uni. It usually involved a few hours of your time and was rewarded with course credit or a $20 voucher to the uni bar or something equally as frivolous. Hell, I did a few when I was at uni too! Anyway back to Stacey. He had been involved in a study by his university's psychology department as he was walking between classes one day. He wasn't a psychology student, he was an art student, but someone had asked and he'd accepted because he was happy to help, had a free couple of hours and liked the sound of 5 beers on a tab that he would soon start at the uni bar for the price of none.
He was given a piece of paper with a room name on it which read H Block. Room 29. 10:15. and nothing else. Stacey wasn't really surprised there wasn't anything else written on it, because he'd watched the guy write that on a scrap piece of paper and that was all he had written, and being that it was about 5 past 10 in the morning and stacey was standing at B block he decided to get a move on without asking what the subject of the study was or how long it would take. It's kind of annoying that he never found that out really, because it would have been interesting to think about why he went to this study in retrospect.
About now you might be wondering why I don't just wait till he's at his destination to talk about what it actually was. But Stacey never got there, so you need to be prepared to let this bit of knowledge just float on out of your mind like a dandelion seed on the wind. Stacey arrived at H block in about 5 minutes and was inside the building looking for room 29 when there was a gas explosion. It actually happened in room 27 but the exact location of the explosion isn't too important because the entire block was destroyed in the blast.
The news reported 29 fatalities, 40 injuries and about 10 people who were treated at the scene and released with minor cuts and bruises. It also reported that it was a gas explosion. Because it was. In fact there was absolutely nothing insidious about this explosions at all, except for the death toll and injuries it was the most innocent thing that could have happened to anyone.
Now as you know from the start of this story, Stacey was a middle aged man. So he wasn't killed in this gas explosion. But he was injured. In fact he was very injured. Remember how I told you that he was heading to room 29 but the explosion had happened in room 27? Well Stacey had been standing in the doorway of room 28 at the time the gas ignited. He'd actually been in the process of entering the wrong room. Now remember as well how I told you that Stacey was lucky? Well room 29 was filled with 29 people at 10:15 on that morning. The 29 fatalities. If Stacey had made it to the room he was supposed to be in for the study it would have been 30 killed that day. The ceiling of room 29 had collapsed and as the room had been emptied of all tables, chairs and benches in preparation for the psychological study there had been nothing to protect anyone from the debris. Room 28 on the other hand was where they had moved everything. In fact it was so full of extra furniture that it was the only room in the entire block to not be flattened by the explosion. Stacey was protected from the worst of the shock by the door frame and the suffered very little in the way of scratches, crushing or even burning! He did however take a piece of metal in his back as it was the most exposed part of him when he had opened the door to the room. The piece of metal was about the size of a playing card, actually it was about the same shape as well so for all your mental images just imagine that he'd had a metal playing card lodged in his spine between two of the vertebrae at about the level of his stomach. I suppose you're thinking, well that doesn't really sound like a very lucky day at all you idiot! And you'd be right. It was a very unlucky day. But that's the thing about luck. Weather it's good or bad, it's still luck.
Of course it really does depend on your point of view. While Stacey did end up in a wheelchair because of the gas explosion, he also survived because of sheer chance and ended up receiving a substantial pay out due to the mismanaged care of the gas infrastructure. I did tell you he was rich didn't I? Well it was a very substantial pay out but I wouldn't say it made him rich. And really, how rich can you be when your legs don't work? You're certainly not outwardly rich in quality of life are you?
But Stacey's story is only just beginning at this point. Lets fast forward a few months. Stacey spent most of that time in hospital, being at first rushed, then calmly wheeled into different surgeries to operate on his back… He had learned how to use his wheelchair and was even introduced to one doctor who told him that in about a year's time he'd be ready to try an experimental procedure that could potentially restore feeling below his waist. Not function, but feeling was better than the numbness that he dealt with now. As well as this he'd finalised his pay out with the university and had met with a
Ok I'm going to stop now. This got boring. This is why you should make a plan before you start writing. Um.. To cut a long story short his legs got better and due to a great investment strategy his money exponentially increased.
Also he got married and lived happily ever after enjoying good pies bought in the town of Leonard.
Happy story see!
TTFN sorry about wasting your time like that. At least you didn't have to write it.
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