Ice Bowls 2
By ice rivers
- 482 reads
I almost tripped when I stepped on the bowling lane. Back in the day, we had to step up from the scoring area to reach the lane. Here the lane was on the same level as the scoring area so as I attempted to step up, I almost fell down.
Now that I’m older and my balance is shot, I fall more frequently. Memories of recent falls tend to gather with each stumble and accrue a momentum of their own. My mind began to fill with images of “I’ve fallen and I can’t reach my bowling ball” scenarios.
With my confidence already shaken by the immediate misstep, I walked onto the lane. I went to the spot on the lane that I used to take when I was a pretty good bowler. I took my stance and prepared for the five steps and slide to the foul line accompanied by backswing and finally release. I counted on muscle memory to take over but unfortunately the memory that had taken over was the last fall that I had taken when my shoe stuck to the floor in a grocery store and I lost my balance and flew ten feet towards the shopping carts in a vain attempt to get my balance which I never got until I smashed nose first into the floor, cut the shit out of my face. lost consciousness for a few seconds and awoke being assisted by a Hell’s Angel’s guy who happened to be passing by and saying, “are you all right, brudda?”
Yeah
So my first steps were, let’s say tentative and the pendular weight and momentum of the back swinging yellow ball wasn’t helping any. The next four slow motion, fearful wobbling steps brought me about three feet from the foul line. Back in the old days, I would be two and a half feet closer and my slide would take me to the line where I would smoothly release the ball and the ball would quietly begin its roll to the headpin.
When my steps ended so far away from the line, they ended abruptly. There was no slide so there I was standing still, a mile from the foul line and still in my backswing which I had started late due to the catastrophization that was clouding my mind and obliterating all muscle memory other than the fear of falling.
The momentum from my release forced me to throw the ball underhanded in the air rather than roll the ball on the alley. The ball landed with a furious THUD and slid its way directly into the gutter seemingly embarrassed to have made such an overly percussive sound as it collided with the lane, anxious to get out of sight before any of the hundreds of other balls on the racks had a chance to wake up and take a gander.
I turned around and looked at Lynn. Her expression was more of concern than pity but it was somewhere between the two.
The ball, seemingly recovered from its last THUD had been forced to return through the darkness of the underground system of automatic ball return and was more ready than I for the second shot of the first frame.
We’re about two minutes into our hour of bowling.
Nobody was hurt yet, though the alley might have been slightly bruised.
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Comments
Don't worry. That'd be me.
Don't worry. That'd be me. Throwing the ball in the air....
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