Bob Costas Brings Laughter To A Man’s Life: A Short Story

“Winning. Ha. Charlie Sheen has gone crazy!” Henry laughed to himself as he fetched the water pail from the barn. “What the Hell is he talking about?”

Henry walked over to the well as he did every morning, but there was something special about this early March morning -- perhaps the warming climes -- that brought a smile to his face. He continued to laugh about what he had seen on the morning news. “Tiger blood. God, I don’t even know what that means. It’s like he’s going insane in front of everybody.”

He hitched his bucket to the rope and pulled it down the well. The morning dew was slick under his feet. He felt himself slip.

And he... awoke was the word. Awoke. He looked toward the sky; what once was bright with the morning sun was now dark. In the night blindness he felt the cold, damp stones of the inside of the well. He knew he had fallen, and he despaired.

He set about the work of climbing out; wisely, he chose not to use the rope to support all his weight, for fear it might snap. Between the stones were crevices, and in these crevices he planted his toes as he slowly worked his way upward.

An hour passed. Moonlight and stillness and silence. And then an arm, lunging upward and then over the crest of the well, and then another. Henry pulled his malnourished frame out of the well, landed on his back, and heaved with exhaustion.

Henry staggered back to his house. It was... cold. Colder than a mere March evening could possibly be. What had happened? He did not know. His shaking hand pulled open the door, and he rounded the hallway and stumbled into the living room, and his attention fell to the still-flickering television, and it said:

Three seconds later, Henry would notice that Bob Costas was broadcasting a football game. Two seconds after that, he would realize that March was not football season, and in the coming minutes he would come to realize precisely how long he had been in that well.

But in this moment, he found the reference timely, and he laughed and laughed and laughed, more happy than hungry. And he was the only one.

(Video via Mike Tunison and Will Leitch)