Choose Your Own Adventure

You're on your lunch break, sitting under a great big maple tree on the outskirts of a public park in the City, re-reading a tattered old copy of The Merry Adventures of Robin Hood, by Howard Pyle. Not far away there is a little league baseball game in progress, and you are surprised by how little you mind the occasional shouting, jeering and cheering by the children and their enthusiastic, happy parents. Enormous clouds of brown dust roll over the grass toward you and you sneeze onto the page.

You close the book, marking the page with your finger right at the part where Robin is about to meet Will Scarlet, right over a beautiful woodcut illustration by the author himself of a happy man in a leotard emerging from the woods with a short sword held at Robin's chin. You look up through the branches and leaves of your tree, then close your eyes, listening to the wind through the leaves, the little league game, the trucks rumbling over the busy afternoon streets.

You can't understand why most of the people in the call center you work at choose to spend their lunch breaks in the noisy, ugly, bright break room, watching television and chattering about stuff. You spend all day long chattering to people on the phone. The last thing you want to do is spend your one free hour talking to people. That's why every day you get as far away from that building as you can. In fact, you are beginning to think that it would be better if you just never went back there at all.

In the distance you hear a siren wailing, but being that you live in a city you barely notice it. Just a mild annoyance that you hope will go away soon. Except it doesn't go away. It just gets louder. You frown, and open your eyes. You are shocked to see the ambulance rolling onto the grass. It seems to be heading directly to the baseball diamond.

That's strange, you think. You figure you would have noticed any kind of problem with the kids before an ambulance had a chance to show up. You peer through the dust, but as far as you can tell there is nothing out of the ordinary. The kids are still playing, the parents still coaching, coaxing and cheering. The only difference is that now there is a huge, noisy ambulance blaring in the grass next to the game.

As you watch, the back doors of the vehicle pop open and three EMTs spill out. While the first two run immediately to the pitchers mound, the third is standing still, in fact appears to be looking right at you. As you stand up, look at your watch, and realize that you are going to be late again you notice that he is gesturing vigorously for you to come to him.

If you go to the paramedic to see what the heck is going on, turn to page yorble.

If you sigh, figure it's none of your business and start to trudge back to work, turn to page hundo.