You would not believe what happened today. I was just walking to work, minding my business. Imagine cars are driving by splashing passers-by with the puddles of last night’s rain and snow melts. Branches are bare or fruit and flower. A mood grows in the skies above, heavy from events and tales of bad people excelling in doing very bad things: more debt, more war, more famine. Earlier, my child said he wasn’t going to go to college and instead will become a lifestyle-influencer for DJs from Jersey trying to get to Ibiza. My wife? She’s leaving me for her physical therapist, financial guru and spiritual guide. I don’t know yet if they’re all the same person or multiple people, but they all live in one yurt, in a farm, selling vegan steak. My own mother is leaving me to join them as they move the yurt and cattle to Hawaii. I was pretty low at this point and was about to hang myself from a 100-year-old tree. Just as I stepped off the hood of my Ford Escape, lightning struck the branch I was hanging from, split it in two, and we both fell to the ground. The branch lay on top of me, taunting me like Terry Tate, Office Linebacker, after I took that extra box of ballpoint pens. There I lay, my ribs snapped like a twig and yet my mortal coil was still… unshed. With the tree now out of commission, I hobbled over to the nearest streetlight.

This was a terrible case of the Mondays, especially because it was Tuesday.

So now I’m standing on main street, cars rushing by. The excitement of the city buzzing everywhere. People passing by, talking, sometimes to each other! Wow… I’d never seen so much activity. The air smelled of coffee, concrete, ozone, exhaust, foul language, and old farts. Boy, I wish I’d grown up in a place like this. Maybe my life would’ve turned out different. Oh well… time to get swinging. Right next to me was an excellent streetlight. This one was just perfect for throwing a rope over, loudly barking out my deranged manifesto, and then swinging on rope all the way to the Fields of Asphodel. Before I die, at least the crowd would get to hear the universal truths on topics like: ancient aliens, pyramids, keto diets, ancient alien keto diets, ivermectin, and how if sinners wouldn’t repent then Satan would foil the second coming of Jesus at the last minute by forcing his soul into the body of a llama. And that’s wholly holy llama drama you don’t want.

The pedestrians left coins for me by the chair now supporting my weight. My moment of fate quickly approached. The noose was tightening; my resolve finalizing. For a final sign of grace from above, I looked up into the skies. Hoping maybe some God up there would give me a sign to step back and find a way to rejoin humanity, and that vegan steak wasn’t real. With trembling lip and timid heart I look skyward… then a bird shit in my eye. That bird was coughing too, so now I have bird-flu of the eye. That bird wasn’t too sick to miss its target though. Fucking birds.

So I’m leaning over the edge of the chair in my beigest suit, from the Boring Bros “Fine Enough” label, wiping bird-flu poop out of my eye with my blazer sleeve. My watch told me a time but was reluctant about getting it right. It was an older model, from Meh’lectronics Inc., and was a gift from my boss, for twenty years on the job. Most watches pretend to be fancy by presenting a shiny gold plating. However, this watch was plated with tin, and farts. It was covered in a petina that looked like what farts smell like, and not fancy lingerie farts that some nasty presidents pay $2000/hr for. Nope! This looked like “2 am bar” farts, or “800 miles of Texas beans” farts. And it worked about as well as an Amazon knockoff item. Most of the time it worked some of the time.

Finally, it was time, for my life to change. You see kids, this is a story of redemption, a story of change, a story that reminds us that even in our bleakest moments, when “The Man” is trying to tell you that ancient aliens Didn’t gift Egyptians the recipe for Ivermectin in order to help build the pyramids, there’s still hope. Yes, there is. There’s still hope that a black man can give you a gentle nod of approval as if Black Jesus himself invited you to the Last Cookout, or Tyler Perry invited you, personally, to be the next second beat cop in an Alex Cross movie.

Here’s what happened. A dapper black gentleman, minding his own business, was gracefully walking by. The man had “it.” Y’know, he had that effortless appeal that would’ve shown up even if he were wearing Vietnamese knock-offs from the 2024 Office Depot Fall collection. When he glided towards my streetlight–as an immortal might glide over the sorrows of a cemetery–he happened to catch a peek at my shoes. Without breaking stride, we locked eyes. He walked toward me while I went nowhere from a strange case of “noose around my neck.” I precariously dangled. He smiled and said something that blew my mind. I couldn’t believe it happened to ME. Me?!

I’m nobody from Nowheresvilletown in the great state of East Nowhere. What did the Black man say, that changed my life forever? He said…

I like your shoes.

Boom! Holy. Shit. I couldn’t believe it. A Black man…. he liked, MY shoes!?! I was so filled with joy and excitement that I momentarily forgot where I was. I never had this much confidence in my life! I was finally going to ask out Becky with the good hair. Finally, things were going my way. Grateful to have my sweet taste in awesome shoes acknowledged by a man with so much style that Billy Zane would curtsy, I reached out my handshaking hand (the one I shake hands with) and walked right toward that wonderful human.

That’s when I fell off the chair.