Little Happy Clouds

It is perhaps the loneliest sixty feet in existence. That is, the distance from the end of a bowler’s sliding foot and shining porcelain curvature of the number 1 pin in a standard bowling lane. The pin stares at you with an inviting glare, begging you to topple it backwards, and send its nine compatriots scurrying into the dark alley pits below.

Tonight, those sixty feet of varnished American oak will be your test, the cost of admission into a greater existence. To accept this challenge is to accept life. And as you wind back, the flex of your forearm tightening your once delicate grip, you are making a pact with the universe to send this majestic rock home. It does not belong to you, no. For you are merely a vessel, returning it to its rightful place.  

And once you have fulfilled your destiny and cleared the lane, you will find peace. Because, as Ernie “Big Ern” McCracken once mused, “You're on a gravy train with biscuit wheels.”