EAGAN
I’m fatalistic. I’ve always had the feeling that time was running out. After 9/11, I started reading end-of-the-world-type books: Alas, Babylon; Lucifer’s Hammer; On the Beach; The Stand. Then I started hoarding bottles of water and granola bars under my bed. Last year I spent my birthday money on two hundred batteries, which I kept in a shoe box at the back of my closet.
Of course, I never intended to die. I mean, really die. I thought I’d be one of those who survived the end-of-the-world catastrophe. In the end, what did me in was a freak accident. No end of the world, just the end of my world. If I had to do it all over again, I’d have eaten those granola bars.
The odd part is that the whole thing started in such a small way.
I was off by an inch. No, less than that. Half an inch. The size of a shirt button. Hardly worth mentioning. Most people barely notice half an inch. Except for my geometry teacher, who made us estimate to the nearest quarter inch. Mrs. Koster said accuracy was of the utmost importance.
But it’s not. Not always. Like the curb I backed onto last month when I was parallel parking for my driver’s license test. I’d swerved too sharply and the back tire of Mom’s blue Chevy slid half an inch off the pavement. I swallowed hard, thinking how embarrassed I would be when I had to tell everyone that I flunked. I thought of Mom watching from the redbrick building across the road, of the disappointment I’d have to see on her face. I thought my life was over right then and there.
But the nice man with the bushy brows said that mistake only reduced my score by five points. Not enough to fail me. Half an inch didn’t keep me from getting my driver’s license.
In gym class when I threw the basketball, if I aimed at the center of the net, half an inch didn’t make a bit of difference. The ball still went through the hoop.
Half an inch. Slightly less than the diameter of a dime.
Most of the time I wouldn’t even have noticed if I was half an inch off. Even in figure skating, half an inch can be covered up. If you move half an inch on your sit spin, you might not even get a deduction.
But sometimes half an inch is really important. If your timing is off and you miss your triple lutz landing, you could end up on your butt on the cold ice. Or worse, you could do what I did. You could go flying off into the boards and hit your head on the edge, a tiny half inch of sharp white board, and if you hit it just right like I did, you die.
Half an inch. It’s enough to cause dreams to fall apart, enough to make the difference between life and death.
I should have listened to Mrs. Koster when she told us what a difference half an inch could make.