A Blue Date

(c) Timo Baumann, May-June 1997, March 1998
All rights reserved.
Especially the rights of publishing, translation and public presentation.

I know, in the net nobody cares about copyright but please:
don't give it away without my name and drop me a line if you like it.

Joe Barnes was excited. This night would be the night. He was going out and he would show everybody that he was a real man. He wore a neat white shirt, a new jacket and even new shoes. He had worn his old shoes for over two years now; he did not feel like getting new shoes very often.

Now he was in the small park close to the sea and waited for a date he had never met before. After a while, he saw a just wonderful woman walking right in his direction. She looked gorgeous: The blue, glittering dress she wore magnified her beautiful body, and her long blonde hair was blown around in the wind. She asked him right away, if he was the guy who was waiting for his blind date, and when he said yes, she told him that he did not have to wait any longer.

The had a great night. First they ate dinner in one of the expensive restaurants downtown. Then they went to the movies and watched one of these old movies one can see over and over again. After that they went dancing in an old bar and also drank and talked a lot. He loved talking to her; her voice was so beautiful that he could have listened to her forever. It was already very late when he brought her back to her house. Even in front of the door they talked another twenty minutes. Her good-night kiss was like heaven to him.

He was cold When he opened his eyes, he saw himself in the small park again, close to the bank at which he had waited. The new day was already dawning. He was confused, but then he remembered. He remembered her coming towards him, asking him if he was waiting for his blind date. And when he said yes, she told him that he did not have to wait any longer: She would not go out with a cripple in a wheel-chair! He hated waking up and being thrown out of his wonderful world of imagination into this real world he hated so much. He would never get a girl-friend and he would never get out of his wheel-chair.

Joe Barnes was found the next day on the beach under the cliffs. His neck was broken, and the wheel-chair that had fallen on top of him had crippled his already crippled legs even more. In the letter they found with him, he summarized all the tortures he had had to stand his whole life. A final note at the bottom of the letter read:

"I wanted to jump off the bridge, but I could not get over the barricades against people that want to commit suicide. What kind of a world is this, where handicapped people cannot even choose the way they want to die?"

Deeper Understanding

A Blue Date

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Downtown