THE MAN, A REFLECTION
“Oh shit,” he mutters under his breath, looking around hoping that nobody caught the singular expletive that escaped his mouth the very second he settled into a comfortable sitting position on the cool concrete slopes of the empty skate park we were in the middle of. Quickly shifting into what appeared to be a reverse plank, Ruru Madrid grimaces as he slid the sole of his Converse Chucks, a seasonal leather high-top pair in an electric Barney-like purple shade, revealing what appeared to be a most unwelcome streak of brown. “Oh, shit,” he repeats, this time with an emphasis in punctuation, before letting out a hearty fit of bellied laughter.
At this point, he quickly darts for the nearest puddle of water, splashing with all his might, before shaking off the excess well, excrements on the peripheral growth of grass. Without being fazed by the unexpected and clearly unwelcome smear of muck, he quickly got back on his mark and resumed the shoot as if nothing interrupted the momentum earlier. But before the steady rhythm could stretch out into a willing pace, the skateboard he rode on unscrewed itself, forcing himself to dismount even before he could even attempt a shred.
“Shit happens,” he realizes a little after the amusement settled, pivoting into a moment for deep thought. “I remember, the last time I was ever on a skateboard before today was years ago when,” he recalls. “The scars on my face were from an accident I met going downhill, which forced my mom to break my board in sheer anger.” Shaking his head at the childish inanity of it all, Ruru Madrid doesn’t shy away from the stories that have shaped him in one way or another, crafting and seemingly perfecting that devil-may-care narrative to his name. “Yes, I mean, everybody says you only live once…that’s true. We do not know what’s going to happen in life. , life is too short. So, i-enjoy ,” he explains, affirming that all those missteps have come with a necessary to learn and grow from. “ skateboard downhill , but I still got up. life, which is what happened to me then. Sometimes that’s too much or training . So, mag-skateboard ”
