When Awe Doesn’t Last

When Awe Doesn’t Last

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As a young boy come home

from his first visit to The

Museum of Science and Industry

in Chicago, I had hot hands

eager to work.

What they held

in a proprietary way

for an interminable ride home

was a box containing

one of those

spiral steel coils—

that stood like a cylinder,

perhaps five inches tall

and about the same width.

It was an industrial toy

that thrilled me, shortened

my breath.

I placed it on the top stair

of the second floor of our house.

I looped it over in

an upside-down J

to the first stair below 

and then let it go

to walk itself down,

robot-like, stair-by-stair,

zzzh-bap, zzzhh-bap, zzzhh-bap

to the first floor.

I watched as it descended,

walked beside it,

ran down ahead and waited

for it to come to me.

I repeated this feat

perhaps 15 times;

it was in me.

Then I put it away

in its box

and don't remember

ever opening it again.

To Ponder

            1.   There is overkill in the overthrill.

            2.   The latter comes on us like can’t sleep teen-age

                  infatuation for someone of the opposite sex.

            3.   Perhaps it can’t be helped or moderated, a holding

                  back so as not to kill something of true merit.

            4.   I admit I haven’t the cure, but have stopped worrying over it; what’s the

                  harm in an occasional comet streak? You always can walk away.

            5.   Yet you can learn something about yourself when confronted by an

                  explosive beginning followed by a fizzled finish.

            6.   Is it a careless entry that beguiles you? Or could it be an incandescent

                  vision that needs only a firm, disciplined hand?

            7.   The main thing to rule out: the fizzle is a result of your own fear.

© 2013 Allan Cox, Allan Cox & Associates Inc. All Rights Reserved.
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If you enjoy reading this story, you may wish to order WHOA! Are They Glad You’re in Their lives? available on Amazon Kindle and in print edition too. 

  • Kindle Edition: WHOA! Are They Glad You're in Their Lives?

  • Print Edition: WHOA! Are They Glad You're in Their Lives?

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