A Rather Odd Story

 

Barry Bolinski had a secret he could never tell.  It was an ability that he didn’t understand for many years, and then he did.  By making various comments and asking questions, he came to realize no one else had this ability or would ever believe him if he said that he did. 

Barry’s unique ability was that he could see stress.  He could see it in steel structures, in cement and even in wood.  He’d see it as a different color from the surrounding material.  He first noticed it in a freeway overpass.  One supporting leg of the structure was red, as if it had been painted.  When Barry mentioned it to a friend, his friend looked at him like he was crazy.  “Barry, there’s no paint on that.  What are you talking about?” 

Occasionally he would see streaks of red on sections of bridges and once on the foundation at the post office building downtown.  The corner of that building eventually collapsed.  It was on a Sunday, and nobody was hurt.  The one time he did speak up was when he noticed one of the welds on a swing set at the elementary school.  It was bright red and he knew it was going to fail.  He told the school principal he had heard it crack when one of the children was swinging on it.  Of course he hadn’t, but it was enough to convince the principal to have it rewelded. 

Barry wasn’t sure what would happen should he ever announce his gift to people.  Most, of course, would never believe him, some would call him a freak or weird.  But who would actually address an issue they didn’t see for themselves.  No one was about to tear down a bridge just because some guy named Barry said he saw something going on with the material. 

It was the thump of his morning newspaper landing at his front door that reminded Barry it was finally the weekend, and he didn’t have to rush off to work.  Sitting on his back patio with his coffee and Saturday’s news, he propped his feet up and listened for a moment to the birds singing.  

As he opened the paper, the first thing to catch his attention was the full-spread photograph of the new ball stadium.  Never before had he seen anything red like this.  It had always been the actual thing that he saw, not just a picture of it, but here it was, a large section of the stands was red.  He saw it very plainly.   There was no way he could keep this to himself.  He wondered if the contractor had cut corners, or used inferior materials, but whatever the reason he had to say something to somebody.

 

 

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 to be continued