Bob

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Z, Darkness

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B, a boy of 17, identified as the newly hired waitress no one had met Miss A, even as she stepped onto the path on which he walked at a distance of no more than 75 yards. B wore camp-issue tan t-shirt and shorts; new employee A wore a red summer dress, her shoulders bare, her honey hair swinging free.

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Inconsequential people of various sizes and ages as well as trees in full foliage were strewn about. He could not at that moment see the small beach on the North end of the Chesapeake Bay down the hill to his left, nor the sun at his back, but took as articles of faith their existence. What became arranged in his mind as the only matters of consequence were 5 yellow cabins--C, D, E, F, and G--on the left side of the path on which she progressed toward him.

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He calculated that if he B ran full speed behind points C, D, E, and broke out between points F and G, he would arrive at a point on the path X through which she passed in exactly 30 seconds, and counting. B's legs flew, moving past C, D, and E, leaning into the turn immediately after F, racing toward point X where he expected to see A approaching, at which moment he would be the very first to introduce himself and win a little bit of heaven in the good old summertime.

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B had predicted the rate of travel for A precisely but had incompletely imagined a space of 15 feet between F and G in which had been planted, in some past period of stability, a concrete bench H equadistant between F and G. He recognized in a flash that his diagram had become ridiculously twisted.

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His right shin, designated here B prime, leaped out at the instant B recognized this error, striking the wide, gray seat of H and breaking not only the progress of the body in motion but the skin, at the very least, of B prime. So abruptly did B strike H at B prime that he spun 3 times and dropped on his back in the center of the path on which oncoming A stepped over B with simple grace and the mincing words, "Excuse me."

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Recumbant B remained in the path, which he now, far too late, designated Y. The region of B prime which had struck H began to bleed profusely. In that moment he understood how frail are all the plans and deeds of man. Still, but ever so briefly, in the mind of B there glowed a vision of A's tanned thighs stepping over him before all points collapsed into Z, darkness.