Brent stood in the road, planning his next move carefully. He studied the large, melting banks of icy snow that blocked his path to the sidewalk. They were taller to the left, and harder to navigate. To the right, they were smaller, but surrounded by larger puddles of water. He looked down at his canvas sneakers, and considered the consequences to these actions.
He could walk half a block down to the intersection, where things were shoveled and the puddles were minimal, but that would add roughly an eighth of a mile to his journey. This was Wednesday. He didn’t track his steps on Wednesday, and wasn’t about to take an extra, wait how many steps?
2,000 steps was a mile, divided by eight. Wait, hold up.
Eight quarters is two dollars, which is 200, so an eighth of 2,000 steps would be a zero at the end of twenty-five, so 250 steps.
Well, that wasn’t that many, but he still didn’t feel like walking it.
He chose to try to surmount the taller banks. Brent, being a wise person, tested its structural integrity first.
No dice.
The bank was far too soft. His foot started sinking immediately, and he could already feel bits of shaved ice find its way into his sneaker. This hard, yet soft, snow reminded him of Christmas, 1987. He received a snow cone maker, one of those ones that looked like Snoopy and his doghouse.
Brent felt nostalgic for nearly 4/25ths of a second as memories stirred of eating the purple top of his snow cone in its wet paper funnel, then going back for more grape syrup. Then he would suck the syrup out of the ice, and repeat the process until his mom yelled at him.
The ice just made the sugar colder.
While still reminiscing, Brent approached the smaller banks and found the section with the narrowest puddle. He approached the edge, and estimated. He had enough experience with platformers to know what to do: Brent took three steps back, and jumped.
His form was quite similar to a ballerina’s sauté, though not nearly as clean. His arms were not in any known dance position. Still, he cleared the waters, both liquid and solid, and landed on a relatively dry section of sidewalk.
He could now safely enter the cafe.
As he stood in line, Brent started running the calculations of how to reverse and repeat this procedure while holding a twenty-ounce cup of hot coffee.