The Runaway Shopping Cart
A shopping cart got loose from the cart corral at the grocery store the other day.
A gust of wind got it rolling. It moved slowly at first...so no one would notice.
But roll it did.
Little by little as it crossed the black-top parking lot it began to pick up speed. A front wheel wobbled, clicking.
Luck was with that rusty cart with the wobbly wheel because the parking lot was inclined just enough, and the wind was blowing just enough. The cart started clipping along, with a front wheel rattling, clacking.
And by the time the cart reached the edge of the parking lot it had plenty of speed to BANG! right over the curb and out into the street, out of the lot, the lot so blistering hot in the summer and so freezing cold in the winter, the greasy lot with the rushing, and the bumping, and the pushing, and the shoving.
Out on the street now, the cart cruised passed the gigantic shopping mall. It sailed passed the hamburger restaurants. It flew passed the new-car showrooms and the treeless housing developments. The front wheel shook, clunking.
Fueled by the wind and a nice incline the cart rolled straight through the traffic, the lights, the noise, and the fumes, out toward the wide open sky.
Into the corn, into the beans, past the cows, past the fields. The fresh breeze blew soothing sounds, and the cart rolled along.
The cart rolled on until the big forest appeared, the forest where the wild country started, where the river flowed deep and dark, where the trees grew tall and strong, where there weren't any parking lots or cars. The cart rolled on.
Down, down, down, into the quiet, and the clean, and the green. The cart rolled on.
And when the time was right, when nobody was looking, when nobody would see, the cart lurched right and rolled right off into the forest, through brush, and brambles, and rocks, and weeds.
And the runaway shopping cart was gone.