James Littlejohn - 200 words

This kid shows up at my door. A six-week newspaper subscription will help him and his classmates go to Europe or something. “Why do you want to go to Europe?” I ask him. “I went, and it’s overrated.” The kid doesn’t have an answer, he hasn’t been out of the county, let alone the country, in over a year. He does his best to sell, but they stuck him with a bad product. I tell him I can read the news for free anytime I want. He doesn’t have an answer. He looks like he’ll be addicted to drugs in a few years. Maybe that’s stereotyping. Maybe that’s the truth. Maybe Europe’s what this kid needs to get his life turned around before it goes off the deep end, like it did with all my friends in High School. They didn’t go to Europe, and maybe that was the problem. “What am I talking about?” I tell myself. “This is nonsense, I can’t afford this, besides, I gave that guy on the freeway off-ramp some change last week.” I say no. He turns away. I change my mind. “Here’s five bucks,” I tell him, “but I don’t want the newspaper.”

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