It Was A Wednesday

a short story by Joel E. (aka: sacrelicious)

It was a Wednesday, which is apropo of nothing, but the fact remains that it was a Wednesday. when you think about it, what difference does it make that it was a Wednesday? would it make a difference if it were a Thursday? a Monday? a Saturday? sure, there are certain things affecting these events might not have been scheduled for another day, but those things still might just as easily have had certain preceding events turned out differently. in school they taught us that Columbus sailed the ocean blue in fourteen-hundred and ninety-two. but what would have been different had he instead embarked on an ocean journey in fourteen-hundred and ninety-three? would anything have been fundamentally changed? probably not. perhaps certain coincidences would have occurred or would not have occurred had events transpired a day earlier or later. maybe he would have encountered a storm that might have ended his fateful journey. but aside from a shifting of coincidence how would things have been different? and if all of the prerequisite events and post consequences of action taken place one day or one thousand days - or even one thousand years - earlier or later in compensation, then the impact would have remained the same. but nevertheless, the events in question here took place on a Wednesday.

on a Wednesday at nine o-clock, to be exact. no, I will not tell you whether it was am or pm. surely you can figure out that from the context I provide you with. if, for example, it is mentioned that this happened on someones way to work, why then you can infer that it was probably in the morning. but no one involved with these events had been on their way to work when the events at the heart of the issue took place, so that is irrelevant. the time itself is as irrelevant as the day. and don't even get me started on the utter pointlessness of the date. how the hell does that effect anything? sure, if I said it happened on April first you may be inclined to suspect that I am lying, but nevertheless the date is ultimately unimportant in the grand scheme of things, and so is the time. if, for example, I said that someone died at three o' clock, would that make it more or less affecting to you than if I said it happened at seven o' clock? obviously if the death of this person were to affect you the time would hardly matter one way or the other. now it might be important to someone investigating this mysterious death, but only insofar as it rules out (or in) certain possibilities or likelyhoods, and insofar as it helps to establish a chronology of events. my point is that it doesn't't serve our purposes here to to dwell on the the time or date of these facts, because that has no particular impact on the meaning of these events. it's really just trivia. why should we place such silly trivia before the meaning and interpretation of the events in question? and yet so often that is exactly what we do. do I really need to bring up a certain catastrophe in New York? and yet so many politicians find it expedient to merely bring up that date in order to trigger a specific Pavlovian response that has been condition in us. but that is neither here nor there.

anyway, one Wednesday at nine o'clock in a small town in Nebraska - hold up here. a small town in Nebraska? what, would you have gone "fuck you, that's bullshit!" if I had said Minnesota or Kentucky? maybe if you're a Nebraskan you might go "WOOOOOOOOO!" like I was some rockstar on tour preceding the name of your home state with "hello", but that has nuthin' to do with nuthin' other than vanity. now maybe to some peoples way of thinking it would mean less to them had it happened in some far off place like Zimbabwe. and maybe to someone from Zimbabwe that would give it a greater impact. but to be honest, you're probably about as likely to visit Nebraska as you are to visit Zimbabwe, so why should it make a difference to you? but sadly, these things often do. call it nationalism, call it xenophobia, but most people just seem to care more or less about things depending on where they take place. if you are one of those people, kindly replace the name of the state wherein these event occur with that of the state or nation from whence you hail or are currently living in. this will lend my account of this the proper emotional weight for you.

so where were we? ah yes: Wednesday, nine o'clock, Nebraska. a young insurance salesmen named Bill was watching television. why was he named Bill? what was he watching on television? how goes the insurance game? fifty bucks says you weren't thinking any of those things! am I right? and yet somehow if I left them out you would wonder why. those aren't any more relevant to the events I am about to detail than the day, the date, the time or the location. but yet you would feel the story was missing something if I had left them out. okay, I will concede that if I didn't give his name it may make it difficult for you to distinguish him from other people involved in this story. but does it make any difference to the point of the story what his name is? would you be more or less sympathetic towards him if his name were Chris? perhaps you would if you were currently angry at someone named Chris. but the odds are just as good that you are currently angry at someone named Bill. and maybe you have some issue with television or insurance salesmen, but once again that's all neither here nor there.

the point of all of this is what happened to insurance-selling, Nebraska-living-in, television-watching Bill at nine o'clock on a Wednesday: actually, to be honest I'm not entirely clear on that myself.


fin