089 - drive

"You just gotta check out how freaking sweet this thing is," Dave said boastfully as he led Doris to the backyard. "You're gonna go nuts," he continued, undoing the latch on the gate on the side of the house. "Okay, okay, Dave, whatever, let's just see it then," she said, with her arms folded across her chest. She seemed disappointed already.

Dave got the door open, and as they rounded the corner of the house, his excitement grew. He threw his arms up, waving towards the middle of the backyard. "Ta-da!" he exclaimed happily. Doris' expression did not change at all. "So?" she asked.

"Well, it's a trampoline!" he continued, with a jovial sound in his voice. "Yeah, and?" Doris asked in a rather unimpressed voice. Dave just chuckled. "Maybe you don't fully understand. This whole giant thing, it's a huge trampoline! Not just a tiny one. It's gigantic!"

"A trampoline," she stated. Dave nodded. "Yup, a trampoline! We can like, you know, jump on it and stuff. It'll be great."

Doris sighed. "What are you, in the third grade?" she asked. "Is there some kind of age limit on having fun, Doris? What, when we graduated from university we just decided that we would never enjoy certain things again because we're 'adults' now or something?" he asked in an almost scolding tone.

She melted a little. He was right. When she was little, she had really enjoyed jumping around on a friend's trampoline. Perhaps Dave was being a little too enthusiastic, but he was right. It would probably be fun. "No, we can still have fun," she admitted.

Dave walked to the edge of the trampoline, kicked his shoes off, and hopped on. He extended his hand toward her, and invited her, "My lady?" She laughed. "You're such an idiot," she said to him as she too took her shoes off, and grabbed onto his arm as he pulled her up.

Soon they were both bouncing around as if they were children once again. They started off slowly enough, but before long they were doing all the silly things that people will try to do when placed on a gigantic trampoline. Jumping higher and higher. He was trying to flip over. They tried jumping on nearly the same spot, or standing far apart and seeing how much their own jumps could influence the other's.

"So, this is pretty awesome, right?" Dave asked her, in between a jump. Just as Doris was about to answer, she came back down to the surface of the trampoline, and as she landed, something felt slightly different. Before she had a moment to react, she heard a tearing sound, and then a popping sound. The trampoline felt different.

Then Dave fell down onto the surface of the trampoline, and he wasn't moving. Doris began to ask, "Dave, what's wrong?" but she hardly finished as she turned to look at him. One of the trampoline's large springs had lodged itself firmly in his face, which was now a bloody mess.

"Oh my god!" she yelled as she bounced over to him. From the looks of it, the spring had torn firmly through his brain, and he was not moving or responding at all. In the back of her mind, Doris knew he was dead, but she refused to accept it. She checked for a pulse. Nothing. He wasn't breathing.

"You see, Dave?!" she said through her tears. "This is why we can't have fun, this is why trampolines aren't awesome!" she cried. She realized that perhaps she should find a doctor or some other assistance, so she quickly dismounted the trampoline, which was now quickly being covered in blood.