The Man Who Never Fell

There did once live a man who never fell. When I say he never fell I do not mean that in a metaphorical sense, as in never failed or screwed up. He definitely did plenty of that, but he never actually fell, as in he never once fell down physically so that both his knees and both his hands touched the ground against his will. Perhaps you suspect that this man must have been wheelchair bound his entire life or maybe he was a super star athlete with incredible balance. Neither were the case, and he had no physical handicaps to speak of, nor did he have any great physical abilities. His motor skills were well within the normal range for male humans of standard physical build and average height and weight. He was in fact very average in all respects physically including in the looks department which (partly) explains why he only married once and it lasted only two years. Mentally he was much the same, average. Not too smart but not exactly dumb either. He lived for 82 years in various location around the United States and even spent 1 year ‘living’ abroad after he graduated from college with his degree in sociology. Remember what I said about him not being too smart. He worked four different full time (forty hour per week) jobs over the course of his career until he retired at age sixty two and a half. None were particularly interesting, or made him very much money, but none were terrible either. It would be fair to say that much like everything else in the mans life they were average.

In any case this man who was average in every way that matters was well, well above average in one unusual area. He never once fell down. Not one time in his entire average life from when he first mastered how to walk at age three until the day he died. He did trip on several occasions, once over a curb he did not see, once over a sleeping homeless man on the sidewalk, and once when he was rushing along a street and thought to kick what appeared to be an empty cardboard box but did in fact contain a discarded blender. The surprise of the impact caused him to lose his forward momentum and at that moment he almost fell, but in the end he did not. In case you were wondering he died in his sleep, laying down, of a heart attack, so he did not even fall then.

It is believed that this man was the only man or woman in the history of the human race to have accomplished this particular feat, and most experts predict there will never be another.

Author's postscript: I can't say what I find so strange and interesting and appealing about this idea, but there is just something about it. Could it actually be possible for a person (man or woman) to live an entire natural healthy lifespan and not once fall down over the course of it? Has it ever happened in the history of mankind or will it ever happen? Such an unusual thing to think about particularly when you ponder it deeply. There are so many factors that contribute to a given person falling in a given situation/scenario. So many things must happen in exactly the right sequence and order. So many very, very unlikely things. And yet, it happens all the time. People fall all the time. But not this man. What would it mean for that person, for the world, if there were such a man or woman? Likely nothing, but maybe not. Just maybe this person could have been/will be the most blessed person ever to walk (and not fall) on the face of the earth.