Joy of Medina County Magazine | October 2018
I lost count around seventy. And we weren’t even halfway. “How…much…higher,” Marissa panted a couple minutes after I’d lost count. We were simply walking up the steps now, all of us exhausted. “I think…I think we’ve got another hundred steps or so,” Devin said, looking up. “We also have another problem.” I noticed the last tour group coming down toward us and panicked. We were about to be trapped between two tour groups, neither of which we were supposed to be with. And the one behind us had a couple officers coming after us. Things weren’t looking good. “What…what do we do?” Marissa said. We were mindlessly climbing steps still, mostly because that was all there really was to do. “Keep going. And if the other group asks, just tell them we’re really excited to get to the top,” Devin replied. He had fallen a couple steps behind me, and Marissa was several steps behind him, but as long as we
were significantly ahead of the group behind us, I thought we’d be fine. The tour group coming down approached, and the woman leading them frowned at us. “Aren’t you a little ahead of your group?
Luckily, it was enough to quell her suspicions, and we passed by them without any hitches. A little while later, we could see the top of the steps. We were sweaty and panting and ready to take a 12hour nap, but we still had to find a way back down past the cops that were only a minute behind us. “There it is!” Marissa shrieked in excitement. With a sudden burst of energy, we raced to the top and, finally, out the door.
Our st ory cont inu es next mont h! Y o u should stay with them,” she said, letting us slip through between her followers without much resistance. “Sorry, love! Just excited!” Devin shouted in an awful British accent. It sounded more like he had a speech impediment.
Christopher Barnes is a graduate of Medina High School/Medina County Career Center and The Ohio State University. Find his stories of realistic fiction and magical realism at http://cbthesurvivor.
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