Dear Mom,

Yesterday afternoon was probably the most horrid time of my life, if you didn't see it on the news already let me tell you about it. First, I was in a runaway hot air balloon with a serial killer. But before I get into that, let me tell you the things that intrigued me the most. In the morning when I woke up, I decided to take a shower. While suds-ing up my hair, I banged my elbow on the shower nozzle, causing it to bleed severely. I finished washing my hair out, and ran to the closet, grabbing rubbing alcohol and a strip of gauze, applying pressure and wrapping it around. Anyways, my cellphone was at a pretty low battery, so I spent some time searching for the charger. With my luck, I couldn't find the charger, and gave up to catch a taxi quickly.

Arriving at the sidewalk, there was a conveniently parked taxi across the road. As my foot touched the pavement of the road, another taxi screeched in front of me, and I hopped in without thinking. The taxi reeked of cigar smoke and McDonald's french fries. The driver, who's shift was over after this ride, was in quite the hurry so he shouted for me to give him directions. I told him to bring me to the pawn shop on Montgomery Avenue, which was across town. After cutting every red light and stop sign, I arrived at the pawn shop in about five or six minutes, when the ride probably would have taken fifteen at least.

As I was saying, I entered the pawn shop and spoke the secret password, "Time is infinite, but you have to beat the clock", which by the way is a huge coincidence here. The moustache'd man smirked, and opened the backdoor for me. A group of five men sat in chairs around a pool table, studying a peach. Now, as much as I want to skip this part of the story, I must confess to you I was trading our secret peach cobbler recipe in return for two hot air balloon tickets. I took the crumpled up paper with scribbly instructions on it and placed it on the table. The more taller of the men grabbed it, and head trouble reading my scrawls. However, he made do with it, and gave me the two tickets as promised.

Rushing out the shop, I grabbed my cellphone and began dialing my date, Eva,'s number. Due to my battery in the red zone, the call couldn't be complete and my journey was now pointless. I didn't have a date for the hot air balloon ride, but I ultimately decided to go anyways. Walking, instead of risking my life in another taxi, I arrived just in time for the last balloon ride. A little girl was sobbing at the line, as she didn't have enough money for the ride, so the man refused to accept her onto his balloon. I, with my extra pass and finally feeling helpful on my journey, offered the young girl my second ticket. She excitedly accepted, and away her, the operator of the hot air balloon, and I went into the air.

After a couple minutes, and being a decent amount of distance above ground, the operator unsheathed a hidden knife from his pocket, and begin cursing at us in a foreign language that even I, knowing several languages, couldn't understand. His words spat out at us in fumes, angrily, while his face turned a red similar to our homegrown peaches. He was pointing the knife at us, and making small incisions into the air, but then he swung his arm ninety degrees counter clockwise and the blade screeched through one of the four ropes attaching the balloon and basket. He stepped closer now, and swung at the rope behind me, which was diagonal to the previous one, now it was slightly balanced, but surviving on two ropes.

I checked my pockets for anything to use as a defense mechanism, but nothing was in there except for a crinkled up dollar bill. I offered it to him, begging for the girl and I to survive, but he refused, and reached for the girl. I'm not quite heroic, but I would not stand for any of this. I grabbed for her as well, and attempted slamming my right fist (in which the one with the wound at the elbow) into his boiling red face.

This knocked the man woozily backwards, and toppled a little over the edge. Now, he slammed the blade directly into my inner elbow, and I heard a horrible pop come from this attack. Panicking, I jutted my now wounded arm at him and he toppled over the edge. Now the girl and I's problem was getting back down.

I know a little of the hot air balloon's system, and that there was a string attached to a flap at the top, to release the hot air from the balloon. Navigating with only one arm due to the other not .. functioning, we were only a short distance above the ground now. However, with our excitement at our success, I knocked the string attached to the flap forward, and soon the balloon caught on fire.

Without any air, we were flying down at a lethal speed. We fell down to the corner of the basket, and I grasped onto the girl with my one arm, and she held tightly onto me. We knew it was over, there had to be some kind of miracle to let us live. But there was, what it was I couldn't explain, but there was a miracle, a guardian angel who loosened the fall.

The fall impacted my arm further, but all I cared about was the little girl being safe, which she was. After laying barely conscience on the crash site, an ambulance arrived.

Now here I sit, in the middle of a hospital. Tubes are processing my blood, those suction cups with wires attached to them are attached to different areas of my body. X-rays are done every other hour. The doctor says my arm may never be healed, it might have to be amputated. They're going to operate on it soon to see what they can do. I can still use it a little, as you can see I'm writing this letter with my right hand. However, I don't mind that much of my arm being amputated, because everyday if I wake up to see it missing, it will remind me of the courageous thing I did, I saved a little girl's life.

Anyways, let me get to the part I find brain wracking. It's the whole if things did, or didn't for that matter, happen that day. In the morning, if I hadn't injured my arm, would I still need to be in a hospital?

If I was patient, and did find my phone charger, would I have been able to call Eva?

If I took my time to get to the taxi driver across the street, rather the one who stopped in front of me. Would I have arrived at the pawn shop at the regular fifteen minute wait, or even longer?

If at the pawn shop, the man I gave the recipe too couldn't read my handwriting, and made me rewrite it neater, it would have added time to my expedition, no?

If I had charged my phone, would Eva have picked up my call and went on the balloon with me, where surely she could have easily taken down the serial killer.

It's all ifs, but what happened had definitely happened. Nothing I can do can change that, but I'm not quite sure I do want to change anything.

I've learned: Time Will Always Go On, So You Have To Accept Matters Before You End Up Living In The Past.

Also, do you think sometime before my operation you could bring me some of your famous peach cobbler?

Love,

Ezekiel