Upon hearing the scream, you turn tail and run. Yep. You thought you’d conquered your fear of hearing people scream, but you haven’t.
As you run back up the hill, you pummel yourself with the same old critiques: I’m a coward! Did I learn nothing from middle school? Am I still in middle school? I might as well be!
You have a lot to learn, evidently, but thankfully you won’t have to worry about studying for those life lessons, let alone putting them in action: as you sprint up the open hill, you’re struck by lightning.
What? A storm was scheduled to hit tonight, yes, but that wasn’t supposed to be for a while – and the sky seemed pretty clear on the way down. Ah, but then you remember another middle school lesson which you never picked up: lightning can strike even when the skies are clear.
Yet you are not killed instantaneously. The electricity passes straight through you, opening up a Nile River – or Grand Canyon, you can Choose Your Own Analogy – along your spine, and you collapse in the dry grass like a sizzled steak that smells thoroughly unappetizing. You will be dead in a few minutes, it’s true, and your brain is already far worse off than it was in middle school (or even your classmate ‘ole Jimmy Fiddlepiss’ brain, for that matter, and now he’s a Congressman), but at least you can take these last few moments to reflect on your failures.
Yes, you should have either walked straight into those double-doors like Aragorn, or climbed up the bougainvillea like Romeo. Whether or not an Arwen or Juliet in distress awaited inside (or Frodo, to your Samwise), however, you will never know, because…
Homecoming of Horrors 