Stories under the Velvet Sky

Chapter Five: Where the Half-Truth Lies

The town of Worthington, which for your information, yes, as far as I know, is fictional. Why the hell would I tell you anything about the actual location of the events that occur here? Then you might go looking for them, and that would be very, very bad. I don’t want to see you around here. That would be really creepy. Nothing screams ‘stalker’ like tracking down random people on the internet.

Anyway, Worthington is a small little town. It used to be a fishing town, but then all the fish died from pollutants emitted by the power plants and other waste facilities located several miles downstream from the secluded place. Now it is the location of Worthington High School, a private academy named like a public high school so that the students might not despise it so much. It is also the location of a private college run by the very same folk who managed the high school, and middle school, and elementary school, and preschool… and daycare.

Since the death of its fishing industry, the small town has become a haven for rich old people who either want to retire, or send their children away from “evil inner city influences” that would “corrupt their innocent little minds”. I don’t know about you, but all the children I’ve ever met over the age of six were evil little bastard, and hardly as innocent as their family members claimed they were.

But then I suppose family members will turn a blind eye to anything so long as they love you. That tends to become very destructive at times I think.

Back to the matter at hand, of which I am mostly certain you wish to know about. Had I managed to make it home safely?

Well… Sort of…

I would like to say first that I am not a klutz. I do not trip; I fall on purpose. Though one could certainly argue the case that ‘purpose’ is a very loose intention, as I swear I don’t start out intending to do a face plant into the concrete. I stop paying attention for an itty-bitty moment and then BAM!!! The sidewalk gets to greet the rest of my face for an affectionately painful close-up.

Worthington streets are made up of brick for no adequately explained reason. It had been like that when I had arrived, and there was no indication of it changing anytime soon. Never mind that pavement was much better suited to tire tracks, but I quickly found out that very few people actually drove cars around this small town. The brick streets, of course, mean that there are many, many more cracks for my shoes to catch on, and while I can be quite good at catching my balance, there are times when it, like a poorly thrown softball, eludes my grasp.

The walk towards my residence was relatively uneventful as I dodged past tree branches and potholes hell-bent on tripping me up into my doom. As the time passed and I grew closer to the building, I found myself having to either travel through a creepy forest downhill, or travel down a set of stairs to my destination.

Being of rather sane mind and having a general fear of black and yellow speeding objects that had a bad habit of attacking people at random- I set out for the stairs. It was a rather steep staircase, and I turned my head away from in front of me for a moment to catch a passing glance of a chirping bird for but a moment. And then I had the misfortune to discover that my shoelaces were untied.

During my lifetime, I have discovered, quite by accident, several ways of falling down staircases. I’ve fallen off of railings while screeching down on a skateboard; tumbled down a small set of steps and into a swimming pool while trying to avoid my nagging cousins; tore the bottoms of many a pair of pants as I’ve slid down railings, and then subsequently almost concussed myself upon landing upside-down. All of such mishaps were purely unintentional, a result of my extraordinarily sh- oh look, there’s a raccoon over there.

This particular occasion saw my feet stepping on the laces and then, in an attempt to perhaps avoid injury, landed in such a manner that my left ankle twisted about upon itself and sideways out from under me. My right leg turned out fine, but its position did nothing to prevent the rest of me, plus a messenger bag filled with all sorts of random contents that I shall refrain from mentioning here, from toppling down the rest of the flight of stairs.