It's a friend's birthday today.... err... yesterday actually... so instead of the usual pantless ranting and raving I do... I would like to share a short story entitled "Waiting." Thank you.

In the line of a local video store, a young couple stands a few feet apart from each other. To a normal observer, there would seem to be nothing odd about this, except for the two of them that few feet of empty space resembles a large gaping hole in their relationship. At the very start, things were good. They were almost normal. Nobody really thought they would make a good couple, but somehow they persevered. The first few months of their relationship were a torrid affair of laughter and lovemaking. After a while, though, their relationship began to sour. His self-confidence problems and her fear of failure mixed into some potent brew of doubt and anger. Every time she looked at him, all she could think about was how much happier she had been alone. Every time he looked at her, all he could think about was the first time they met.

They met at a party, like a lot of couples do. No big surprises there. What made it odd was that they had met after a keg-stand gone wrong. The man was the record time holder for keg-stands and he was going for an even bigger record. He was thirty-seven seconds into the keg stand when the girl walked into the kitchen where the keg was. She watched the boy with a wondrous eye, thinking how immature guys her age really were. He caught her glance, and by doing so, lost his concentration. The semi-warm beer flowing through the nozzle suddenly filled his throat as he lost his rhythmic breathing and drinking pattern. His face exploded in a foamy mixture of beer and saliva, causing the two guys holding his feet in the air to suddenly jerk away in disgust. When they dropped him, his head slammed against the keg, knocking him unconscious. When he finally came to, she was standing above him with a worried expression on her face. He just smiled at her and said the first thing that came to his mind.

“You ruined my record.”

Now they were standing in line, trying to ignore all of the hurt and agony they were putting themselves through. He felt like he could never really be himself around her. She felt that he was himself around her way too often. In fact, his off-the-wall sense of humor and behavior had always made her feel… normal. When she was single, she was the wacky friend; the one who was slightly odd, but in a good way. Now that they were together, she had lost that title to a man who once stood up in the middle of a crowded bar and serenaded her with the theme song to “Shaft.”

They moved forward in line, the man humming the tune of a They Might Be Giants song under his breath. The woman recognized the part of the song immediately.

No one in the world ever gets what they want and that is beautiful

Everybody dies frustrated and sad and that is beautiful

She always thought God had a good sense of humor, and even stronger sense of irony. As soon as these words popped into her head, a fifteen year old boy who had just received his learner’s permit drove his fathers van through the front of the store. The van smashed through the front glass, spraying everyone around them. The van careened into the store, screaming people trying to dive out of its way. She turned and dove behind a candy display just in time to see the van fly by her. When she looked back behind her, her boyfriend was nowhere to be seen.

After checking herself for any huge injuries (Just a bruise or two and some little scratches), she climbed out from underneath the pile of candy bars that had managed to shield her. She stepped over some of the wreckage, which included people, mangled and bleeding crying for help. She knew she would call somebody as soon as she found out what had happened to him.

She found him pinned between the front of the van and the drama section. It seemed fitting in retrospect. She knelt down next to her boyfriend and tried to take his hand. In it was the video they were going to rent. It was some stupid comedy with that guy from “That 70’s Show” that some friend had said was funny. Her boyfriend hated that actor, but trusted their friend enough that he would end up renting it anyway. She let out a silent cry when she finally looked at his face. It wasn’t that it was disfigured or gory or anything. Instead, despite of a few scratches and some blood that was pooling in his right eye socket, he looked perfectly fine. He was alert and alive. When he saw her, he smiled a little. The first thing that struck her was how her stupid boyfriend couldn’t even die normally. The next thing that struck her was how horrible that last statement sounded.

His breathing was shallow, as if one of his lungs had been punctured. When he talked, it came up sounding very watery, as if his collapsed lungs were filling with blood.

“It kind of sucks when you think about it,” he said quietly. She nodded, a tear streaming down the side of her face.

“You were really looking forward to seeing that movie,” she replied. He smiled at her, knowing that he would’ve said the exact same thing if their positions had been switched.

She called the proper people that one should call in these sorts of situations. She tended to the people who required the most immediate care and couldn’t provide it for themselves. The people who were lucky enough to be nowhere near the front of the store helped her. By the time they were finishing up, the first ambulance showed up outside. Knowing there was nothing more she could do, she walked back to her boyfriend. He was still awake and tried his best to smile when she showed up again. They talked a little bit about the first time they met, and joked about how he was such a magnet for drama and injury.

He did end up dying, there’s no doubt to that. A human body can only take so much strain before it just gives in, and having a van hit you and drag you a dozen or so feet can cause a hell of a lot of strain. After that, though, the girl was never the same. She didn’t become dark or drawn into herself. In fact, she became even more of an extrovert. She was once again the wacky friend, the funny one. She wasn’t normal or anything, but who the fuck wants to be normal anyway?

Two months after the accident, she had realized what her boyfriend had done. He hadn’t replaced her by being the crazy guy he was. The reason she felt so normal was that she was normal, with the tendency to go wild from time to time. All he had done was shown her how to be the crazy friend, and how to do it right. Now whenever people ask her how she got so funny, all she would say was that a fifteen year old had run down her boyfriend with a van in the middle of a video store. This would always be met with shocked looks that made her smile. And that is beautiful.