Off Trail by Rick Polito
Author:Rick Polito [Polito, Rick]
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9781953944023
Publisher: Wise Wolf Books
Published: 2021-06-02T16:00:00+00:00
The next two hours were punctuated with yelps and other loud exclamations of distress from Troy who was taken to Ronâs tent for a meticulous and painful de-thorning. He stayed there when Ron emerged and called us together for circle up. We were well into what should have been the dinner hour, but nobody had discussed the menu, or really anything.
The PTG looked about as crestfallen as a perky little chipmunk of a man can look. It was rare to the point of âneverâ that he would admit defeat or and certainly not the kind of failure that the hat game had produced. If it were an âexperimentâ, as he had proclaimed, the results were negative, to say the least, but for him, it was another âprofound insightâ.
He actually used those words.
âCircle up, friends,â he announced, with what I took to be a quiet but deliberately detectable sigh. It didnât seem to matter that we were already in the circle. âLetâs talk about our learnings.â
None of us wanted to participate. We certainly didnât want to âshareâ about it. Iâd been a little inflated with my masculinity, but that had long since drained away in the echoing âouchâ from Troyâs tent.
But then, of course, there was Greg. âI learned,â he said, âthat I have a lovely falsetto, like morning dew on gossamer strands of hope.â
The PTG pulled his eyes away from Greg.
âI will tell you what I learned,â he said. Somehow, he had reached into his knapsack of love and was returning to a near semblance of standard PTG. âI learned that each of you has discovered the gift of empathy. We were able to step outside the world and feel compassion for others, to walk in the footsteps and footwear of our friends.â
There was a pause. I assume half of us were thinking footwear? Who the fuck says âfootwearâ?
Vera stepped forward to break the rhythm of awkward glances. She let the bead drop from her hand and whipped it in tight circles the way Iâd imagine a prison guard swinging his keys as he walks the cell block. She glanced at me with a slight nod that I think only I saw. It seemed like a cue.
I took a big breath and exhaled in this very cartoonish manner and cocked my head to the left, looking dead on at the PTG in such a way that everybody could see and note and maybe gasp inwardly. Ron and Pete were on the outer edges of the circle, as though they did not want to be associated with Hat-pocalypse, but they saw it too.
âBullshit,â I said, and took a breath before continuing. âThis was not an experiment. We were not your lab rats. There was no maze with cheese at the end. This was another stupid thing that you came up with so you could sit back and watch the show. It sure as fuck wasnât therapeutic.â
I let my words resonate around the circle. The PTG said nothing.
âYouâre sick, you know?â I said.
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