Leaper The Misadventures of a Not Necessarily Superhero

Chapter 1 The first time it happened, I had pins sticking in my back. I don't believe the acupuncture had anything to do with it. But in a way, my acupuncturist, she's a witness of sorts. Ask her. She can tell you. Although she doesn't really know what she witnessed, but then neither do I. So she's not arealwitness-kind-of-witness. Not an official, legal sort of witness, you know? Circumstantial at best. She didn't actuallyseeit happen, just the aftereffects, and I'm sure she explained all those away. She wouldn't have believed me even if Ihadtold her what really happened. Who would? Anyhow... I'd gone to my acupuncturist for my regular appointment. Every three weeks for my back. Spasms, mid- and lower back, nothing out of the ordinary. I work in a coffee shop; I open the store most mornings, and I'd opened it that day. Not too much espresso, maybe six, seven shots. Nothing unusual. But working on the espresso bar, pulling drinks, fetching gallon jugs of milk, lugging out a sack of trash, it wears on your back. So she sticks a few pins in, and it feels better. Unblocks the chi, or whatever. I don't know, I don't go for the metaphysical bit, and there's no mystical confusion about my experience. It's alternative care, but she wears a white coat just like a real doctor. She did what she always does, no more, no less. Pins in the back and neck, one or two near my thumbs. No strange sensations or anything. I'm perfectly aware of myself. No mumbo jumbo, incense burning, or whatnot. There's a ceiling fan on way low, barely moving, I remember. She dimmed the lights when she left the room and made it relaxing. The same as always. So I'm lying there under the sheet with herSounds of Rippling WaterCD playing, and my mind starts to drift. This is what it's supposedto do; it always does. I'm not some mind-drifter. I focus, I'm aware. I'd had my coffee. But I'm daydreaming because you have to lie there. Not quite asleep, just really relaxed, half-dreamy, half thinking of what I'm doing for the rest of the day. Phone bill, got to mail that off. Run back by the coffee shop, pick up the book I'm reading,The Great Divorce,C. S. Lewis, it's wild stuff. I took it in to work because I always take a book everywhere, although I never have time to read at work. And if you take a book and don't get to read it, chances are you forget it's there. I'm not flighty or forgetful. I know what happened to me. Or at least that it happened. But you take a book and don't read it, you forget it. That happens to most people. Anyhow, I'm drifting and thinking that the name of the book isThe Great Divorce,and I snort a chuckle. I guess I chortle while I'm lying there because I'm thinking,Now that's an oxymorona great divorce. My wife and I recently got divorced, so I'm sort of sensitive to the title. I guess she's not my wife, but you understand...my ex-wife. I'm sort of chuckling because our divorce was anything but great. I guess most divorces are less than superlative, not the kind of thing you look forward to, or look back on and say, "Gee, swell times." She'd called the night before, looking for something. Actually, she'd called to accuse me of being why she couldn't find something. A cutting board. A cheap, white plastic, $6.99 cutting board that she swears was hers, though I remember buying that board back in college. A cutting board, a sharp knife, and three pint glasses. I made it through college witWood, Geoffrey is the author of 'Leaper The Misadventures of a Not Necessarily Superhero', published 2007 under ISBN 9781400073436 and ISBN 140007343X.