The Forest of Stone by Lance Manion - HTML preview

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a kept Manion

It’s time.

Time for me to stop pretending I don’t want to find a rich woman to take care of me.

The worst part about the whole thing is trying to ignore that I’m exactly what a rich woman would want. Walking among the semi-washed masses, knowing in the back of my head that I should be on some tropical island drinking and amusing a beautiful woman.

And make no mistake, she would be beautiful.

I’m not talking about a “successful” woman here, a corporate executive or high-powered lawyer. I’m talking about a woman who comes from generational wealth. Multiple homes. Multiple yachts. Her appearance the product of generations of rich men selecting the most beautiful mates. Genes that could quite possibly withstand my goofy genes and still produce attractive offspring.

And how do I know that she would want me?

Because at some point, she would ask me to make a wish, perhaps over a birthday cake or on a blanket under the stars at an elite country club, and I would make a wish so cool, so perfect, that she would be forever smitten.

Doubt me?

Ok, I’m going to share one. Keep in mind, this isn’t my best one. I have to keep a few to myself for when the special moment arrives. Besides, I can’t have you stealing my best lines and getting a rich girl to fall for you under false pretenses, but it’s good enough to win the heart of the aforementioned.

My wish -please note that it does not involve money (a sure way to get a rich girl to lose interest)- is that people could fall up stairs.

Not stumble, but have the same physics involved with falling down stairs kick in when someone falls up stairs. Gravity turned upside down, but only on stairs. When people trip and fall, they keep going. All the way to the top.

Picture it.

She will.

And she will laugh and think I’m brilliant.

To give credence to this conclusion, I will then casually reference some impressive staircases for her to imagine people falling up. Burj Khalifa, the world’s tallest building with 2,909 stairs, the corkscrew staircase of the Statue of Liberty, or the 11,674 stairs that maintenance workers use to access the train tracks on Neilson Mountain.

As she wipes away the tears of laughter, I will causally mention that falling up these stairs would definitely be fatal to whoever ends up crumpled and broken at the top. She would picture this and it would start another fit of laughter.

You know how rich girls are.

Then, as she is about to declare her undying love to me, and with it a life of leisure, punctuated by bursts of excess, it would occur to her that my wish involving stairs wasn’t an accident. That stairs are a metaphor for moving up things, be it structures or social stratum.

Next-level brilliant.

Our eyes would meet and she would know I am truly the one for her. That I am ready to fall up her stairs and end up crumpled and spoiled and broken and pampered.

Yes, I am ready.