The Frozen Water Bottle

It was a normal protest night in Portland, Oregon. Police, armed and protected, stood shoulder to shoulder on one side of the street. Protesters waving signs, lighting fireworks, and screaming obscenities dodged back and forth toward the cops. One protester, a young man spouting explosive crudities, sprinted into the street, cocked his throwing arm, and curved a frozen water bottle into the phalanx of police. The spinning weapon bounced off a cop’s protective helmet and fell meekly to the pavement.

The protesters cheered, and the young man turned to sprint back to his frozen bottle larder. He took two flying steps, but when his foot hit a bit of discarded trash, he lost his balance, twisted his ankle, and fell screaming in pain, face down on Second Avenue.

The cheering shifted to notes of mourning.

The policeman, the man who had received the bottle to the head, lowered his protective gear, broke ranks, and rushed to the protester’s side. On his knees beside the young man, he motioned for a uniformed Emergency Medical Technician to join him. Together they performed emergency first aid in the middle of the street.

With an ace bandage wound tightly around his ankle, the protester, appreciative, apologetic, and crying, shuffled back toward his friends. The policeman and EMT accepted his thanks and moved back to their positions.

It was a normal protest night on Planet Earth. God was there.

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Dick Duerksen writes from the Pacific Northwest.

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