We Have All Been Mulla
Tags: Misunderstanding, Energy, Short Story, Storytelling, Awkward Situations

Photo by Tatiana Rodriguez on Unsplash

We Have All Been Mulla

Storytelling Thursday

I wish to make it clear I have not to this point of my life ever hidden in an open grave. Although I have doubts that I ever would, I do believe that given the only option for saving my life, I would consider it. I do know that, because of my imagination or perception of a situation, I have made changes in what I did.

I think all of us have done, to a lesser degree, what Mulla did. I know many women avoid walking alone at night because of what might happen. I know many times when I am alone walking on the street that women look away or down when they get near. They do not know that I am not a threat. I know that I at times feel nervous when I, again, am walking alone and see a group of males all together. If they are all in business suits, I am not as worried but if they are teens or twenty-somethings, I too might avoid eye contact. I might also give a confident hello to let it seem that I am totally comfortable in the situation.

How many of us have seen a suspected vicious dog and avoided it only to find out that it was a friendly loving adult puppy? How many of us have been afraid to ask a question of a gruff looking official person only to find them extremely helpful? How many of us have avoided doing something only to find it was fun and enjoyable? How many of us hesitated bringing up a concern about something only to find the people involved helpful and understanding? How many of us have found valuable relationships with people we were initially intimidated by?

I am a sports fan. I am a fan of The Buffalo Bills American football team. I am a fan of the New York Yankees baseball team. I have been to games at their home stadiums and have always dressed in jerseys and clothes that indicate I am a fan. I actively cheer for them. I have seen fans of our team, usually drunk at the time, make fans of the other team wearing their colors feel very uncomfortable and even threatened. I have been in other stadiums when wearing my teams jersey been made to feel unsafe. Enough so that people I was with would not let anyone go even to the restroom by themselves.

I have had amazing times with fans from other teams at stadiums and in bars and such. When I was in University we used to cheer loudly and passionately for our team. Enough so we would have the other team make mistakes because of how distracted we made them. I also remember having players come up to us after the game and tell us how much they enjoyed playing at our university because of that. They played harder and enjoyed our loyalty.

I think to a certain point we are all like Mulla. I also think that most of us are like the horsemen. Each year I go to auto race with a few friends. One of the people is Dave. Dave is a gentle giant. His hands are so big that mine literally disappears when he shakes it. One year there was a disturbance and the Police came by our campsite. Dave was asleep in his tent with his feet sticking out the opening. The people still up, drunk, had made too much noise and the police were there to stop that. One of the policemen saw Dave’s feet and decided he must be hiding and part of the problem. He loudly made him wake and asked him to get out of his tent. Dave woke up and made his way out of the tent.

The officer, first seeing that he had obviously been sleeping and then seeing his size looked at him and said: “Oh my sorry, you need to go back in there.” All of us besides Dave broke into laughter. Dave just shook his head and crawled back in. As the police were leaving one of the drunks remarked loudly, even the smartest policeman should know better than to wake a sleeping giant.

So you see Dave was there because the policemen were there. The policemen thought they were there because Dave was there. We were there to laugh at the situation.