The story of Nervousness.

 The story of Nervousness.

by Tami Mina

I was sitting in our science classroom back in St. Anselm's School, when I first pondered if the human body ever falls apart randomly, like when something way too surprising happens and you kind of shatter into a million pieces. I think, that if that ever happened to me, I would absolutely not know what to think of that event, or know how to put myself back together, for that matter.

Shattered. Into a million pieces. As I lay on the floor in a heap of splinters of bones, I thought to myself that I should have a million dollars instead.

A magician would pull my skeleton out with a big black bag and sweep my body under a velvet curtain. I would lay there for three days until the housemaid appears and pulls the curtain away just to let the sunlight in, and really finds me back, whole again, checking my watch and transformed into a shoe shine boy, quickly telling the maid that I might be late for work today. I would tell her to set up some coffee and toasted bread. I dab a bit of butter on my bread and eat gingerly.

As I peek out of the old magician's house, I try to secretly catch a cab without spending too much. I catch a white wedding van instead and told the waiting broad that I have finally arrived. She keeps her face quietly hidden behind her veil and looks out the window. At the right bus stop, he tells her, please STOP THE WEDDING. He gets off, dusts his coat and walks into the building of The Times Magazine to dust off the shoes of an old man in a wheelchair.

The old man suddenly thinks to himself, and gives the lad a thousand dollars to buy himself a pocketbook at the thrift bookstore.

He walks all the way as he doesn't have enough change. At the top floor is the old man, waiting for the lad with a piece bread and some tea with milk. He tells him to move to the office on the lower floor and buy the right book from the secondhand bookstore.

At the bookstore is a green book explaining how he should attain one million dollars.

The whole book looks really daunting and in an instant he knew he would have a very long and interesting adventure for the rest of his life.