3. “So how big was it?”
The voice on the other end of the iPhone sounded shocked. Danny shifted in the padded chair in the crowded United terminal. He had spent the last ten minutes telling his college buddy Kevin the whole story about the snake. He didn’t have to make anything up, but Danny still loved heightening the drama with those inner observations of his. His friend didn’t believe him at first, and now was finally realizing just how crazy this situation sounded.
“It was wrapped around like a massive chocolate swirly cone hiding under my desk. It filled the entire space. I bet I couldn’t get both of my hands around its body if I tried.”
More laughter on the other end. “That’s insane. What did the cops say?”
“I had to call a guy who removes snakes. Like instead of The Horse Whisperer he’s The Snake Charmer. I mean—how does a guy like that stay employed? In Denver? You know?”
“That’s his only job?” Kevin asked.
It sounded like his friend was walking outside somewhere. Kevin was in the financial world and was always making deals and on the go and traveling. Danny didn’t know exactly what Kevin did in exact terms except that his friend made money. Lots of money. And like Danny, Kevin was single. Well, both had girlfriends and both seemed to have a fifty-fifty chance of making it.
“No, I’m pretty sure he gets rid of other animals too. I had to leave my key with a neighbor—one of the steroid guys in the building who wants to bench press me. He wasn’t happy.”
“You’re not that hard to bench press,” Kevin told him.
“If only you could see how much my mind weighs.”
“Why? ‘Cause it’s that dense?”
“If you only knew, brother,” Danny said, thinking how unclever Kevin could be. “I gotta go. I’ll send a pic if the snake patrol takes one like I asked them to.”
“You gonna post something about it on your blog?”
“That’s a dumb question.”
Moments later, while flipping through the different streams of information and communication happening on his iPhone, Danny read the awful news coming out New Mexico.
It’s crazy when a school shooting wasn’t the lead story in the news, but it turned out nature was becoming more deadly than psychotic students gunning down a few kids in the hallway of their school. Four to be precise. Four high school students, all claimed to be unknown to the shooter, were killed while another half dozen injured. A teacher was shot taking down the gunman, some sophomore whose name was being withheld.
Danny finished reading the report and then adjusted his glasses. He shook his head, staring back out to the strangers waiting to board the United Flight heading to Charlotte. The lead story was the tornado that had obliterated a good amount of Columbia, South Carolina. The death toll now stood at 146, a number that kept going up since the initial report. The pictures they were showing revealed nothing but rubble with people standing over them staring in shock. Tears, desperation, emptiness. Pictures that were as commonplace in the news these days as weather reports.
How about them, Danny? Got some funny quips about those people?
Oh how he hated hearing Brooke’s voice in his head. He needed to switch the channel from needy girlfriend station to something else.
The school shooting ran through his head again. As if the world didn’t have enough problems on its plate, something like this had to happen.
The classic song “Mad World” rang through his head. Not the original but the cover version by Michael Andrews. The lyrics were his personal motto in life. “I find it kinda funny, I find it kinda sad . . .” So many things—almost everything, in fact—could be viewed this way. He found people and situations and events funny and sad. He liked to find the funny in sad things and vice versa. Many, many times he liked to reveal the sad out of the funny. The world could have its amusement and Danny would be there to hold up a melancholy mirror.