RESCUED

THWARTED!

It is 7:30 AM and I am puffing my way up the last of 43 ßsteep concrete steps.  But a thick, heavy rope now bars my way to the plaza just beyond.  And there I stand, confused, a voice inside me saying: “Go back down and take the escalator.”

 

RESCUED!

But there is another voice, the voice of a young man.  “Duck under,” he says, as he raises the rope as high as he can, an inch ABOVE WHERE IT WAS, maybe. 

 

DELIGHTED!

And as I STRAIGHTEN UP MY CRACKING BONES, continuing on my journey to work, I am smiling.  Maybe later I will be angry at the idiots who put the rope at the top of the steps and not the bottom.  But for now I am tickled that a man sounding as young as him could look at a woman as old as I feel, and imagine ducking under as a possibility.