EXPLOSION
Sunday evenng I was worn out from church and barbecue with my friends the church ladies and from sorting books in my Swannanoa locker. I have only 50 milk boxes of books left to sort.
Worn out, I fell painfully asleep sitting at my desk with my neck breaking when Susie called at 9 p.m., woke me up, and sent me to sleep in my recliner in the back room. So, rested, I was awake early at 5:30, lay for awhile gathering my wits and was up by 6:30. Usually I wake up at 7, read the news for an hour and orient myself for another day of national craziness.
But today I was up and sitting at my desk when at 7:30 I heard a terrible thud and crash and a shower of broken glass. I thought the explosion of sound was from the floor above me but when I looked into the back room, the floor, including the recliner on which I would usually be reading the news at that time, was covered with shards of glass with a foot wide log sticking through my window. A thirty foot long dead trunk without branches had fallen down the rock cliff, hit the ground and then flipped over against my window, shattering it.
I left a text message for Taylor Proffitt, who manages the building, and then went back to my desk and let this sink in. If it had happened in the darkness of early morning with glass everywhere I would have covered with glass in complete confusion. Or if the the trunk had bounced against the rock face and flipped over on its way down and rocketed through my window I would have been skewered in my recliner. As it was, because I had gone to sleep so early, I was sitting in the other room and except for having glass everywhere nothing had been damaged and no harm done.
Taylor showed up and then Pete who owns the building. They swept up the glass and removed the shattered window as I sat at my desk as usual. When they were done, with black plastic taped over the window, I went over to Zuma for coffee as I would do on an ordinary day as if nothing had happened.
BILLYBABA’S WANDERING 