The Feature of the Day

Yahoo’s feature of the day was the U-tube

Video that went viral about a cheerleader

 

Whose mistake could have been very costly

To her physical well-being.  The video frame

 

Showed her just about to begin her cart-

Wheel.  Oh, my, how did this end, he wondered

 

To himself. The promotional line to tempt the

Viewer into clicking the play arrow in the mid-

 

Dle of the photo was the tease about how bad it

Could have been, but wasn’t, except that it

 

Was bad enough.  He felt like a Roman citizen

At the coliseum waiting to see the Christians

 

Torn apart by the wild animals and thinking

Maybe one would survive without one leg and

 

One arm and a skull half exposed to the bone

And still kill the beast forgetting the Christians

 

Were pacifists back then. And so the devil and

The angel sat on opposite sides of his shoulders.

 

“Aren’t you sick in the gut over the appeal to

Voyeurism splashed all over the gory media?”

 

Angel whispered in his left ear. Wasn’t she

Supposed to be on the right side, he wondered.

 

“Oh, you know you want to see the tumble, the

Crash, that which should have, for all practical

 

Purposes, crushed the cheerleader’s upper-

Most vertebrae rendering her immobile in her

 

Extremities for life, but from which she

Would get up and laugh it all off. You know

 

You want to flinch and reel back at the crash,”

The Devil whispered, seductively in his right

 

Ear. And so after a moment but not too long

He clicked the back button and not the play arrow

 

And it felt pretty good.  It was a little victory, in

The battle of pretty significant Realms, but

 

Victory nevertheless. It was like the time in high

School when the really bright girl sitting next to him

 

In physics innocently (or maybe not) exposed her

Answer sheet and he didn’t look. Seventeen to sixty-

 

Seven and a few more times in between. He’s going to

Go to his fiftieth class reunion felling pretty good –

 

Pretty good, but he also knows that pride goes be-

Fore the fall and he imagines some old classmates

 

Would just love to see him doing a header and then

The splits, splayed out on the floor, writhing in pain

 

And then one hand on his head the other on his crotch

Screaming in agony while being carted off in a fetal position

 

On a gurney to the school nurse while everyone in the

Cafeteria roared. Then he thought that maybe he would just

skip the reunion.