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 he 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. Actually he had no physical handicaps to speak of, nor did he have any great physical abilities. Just like everything else about the man, his motor skills were average. It was purely circumstance, luck, fate, whatever you want to call it that set things up for him so he never fell. 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. She left him shortly after cheating on him with his best friend. Not too surprising as reportedly she often denigrated the man to her friends calling him "boring" "slow" and "a nobody who would never amount to anything." 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. 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.

The End.

Author's postscript: And here we go again with the absurd <600 word count rule fouling up a perfectly good story. When I firs published this piece it generated a good bit of discussion in the comments. I really love the idea so was glad to see that. I think it has the nugget of what could be a very interesting longer story. As I wrote this over two years ago now and have done nothing with it since, it may be at always only remains a nugget. Could such a thing really be possible? Could it really be possible? No way. I don’t think it could be possible. Could it? Live a long, relatively normal human existence, and never once fall down. Maybe, I mean everything that can happen eventually does, right? I can’t stop thinking about this one for some reason. Not sure why it is so appealing to me, but I love the idea. Something that clearly is exceedingly rare but just might, maybe, under the exact right circumstances be possible….or maybe not. But the key is the thing has to be ultra mundane and kind of boring. Sort of like a useless super power but not a super power, just dumb luck or circumstance or whatever. And ultimately meaningless as far as the universe or anyone else is concerned.