Clatter

Stepping out of my truck I carried a water bottle, a thermos, my sunglasses, the keys, my phone, and swung my legs out onto the pavement. At that moment, the sound of falling items: keys crashing, water bottle striking the floor, vibrations thundering off the parking garage ceiling. And for a moment my heart stopped—looking down, I had dropped nothing. I stepped forward, and saw a man crouching behind my truck, clutching at his things that had fallen onto the newly painted pavement. A relief, then, that clumsiness comes to others and not only myself.