Flashback

After an intense rain shower my cane and I were limping away from the Dupont Metro.  We looked like a  demented  crab  trying to avoid the newly sprouted  puddles.  At the Circle a delivery truck barreled through a deep puddle by the curbside heaving a tsunami of foul detritus which upended the cane and me.  Time stopped.  Dirty puddles.

I am six years old  happily waiting with my first grade class on the transport line.  It is three o'clock and the incipient scholars are more than ready to call it a day.  I am togged out in my new pale blue snowsuit which is much admired as is another kid's "I Like Ike" button.  A darkly clad nun on patroll issues admonitions in a high staccato voice.   My hooded ears miss the one about waiting for the bus to board before walking over to my waiting mother's car.  I wave to my friends  as I begin to run across the driveway, but trip and fall into an oozy mud puddle.  As I struggle to stand upright in my sodden snow suit, the dark robed martinet encourages a round of communal laughter.  Through tear blinded eyes it seems like an interminable interval before I reach the car.  My mother's eyes are welling up as she drives down the driveway past the statue of Jesus with the little children. (revised on 3/5/12).