Write me a five paragraph realistic short story that has an introduction, a conclusion, and a conflict that is in first person. Each paragraph has to be 6 sentences or more.
I had never been so embarrassed in all my life. I come from a large family – larger than most, I would imagine – and we've had our share of public failures, but what transpired that summer night will remain etched in my memory till the end of time. Maybe it was fate, or perhaps it was simple bad luck, but either way, my luck was most decidedly down that day. It was one of those pleasantly warm days in early June that only ever seemed to happen on Sundays, and I was milling around a giant playground near my cousin’s house, dressed like the Fourth of July struggling to remain incognito in a sea of rumpled skirts and sweaty armpits. I had carefully avoided every single one of my relatives for fear that they would spot me, corner me and bore me with the seemingly endless stories of some aunt twice removed. I was quite satisfied with keeping to myself, and then, as they say, it happened.
It started at the swing set where I just wanted a little fun. As fate would have it, my old cousin, Sam, was clambering onto the seat of one of the swings. He was tall and wiry, all wiry and leather of hide, with a mad tangle of rusty red hair, and eyes as green as young ice. Sam was widely presumed to be the quietest one in the family, which suited me just fine, for I didn't want to talk. However, my swing was parked too close to Sam's, which should have troubled me enough not to try and have some fun, but I foolishly chose to ignore that warning. I stepped back and threw myself onto the swing, hoping for a smooth yet swift experience.
Almost immediately, Sam began pushing me. It was a surreal experience, like some kind of alternate reality where the reserved cousin suddenly turned into the life of the party. "Ready for takeoff?" he asked, and I braced myself. It was a gentle rocking at first, and then, with careful and intentional pushes, he escalated my swinging into a back and forth movement that I haven't seen or experienced since my childhood days. My laughter became uncontrollable, my sure heart pulsating with excitement, and for a brief moment, I had completely forgotten that I wanted to rid myself from the embarrassment that was my family.
As I reached the peak amplitude of my swing, I noticed that the bolts holding the chains of my swing were slightly rusty, and as one does while having fun, I brushed away that momentary thought. The following seconds were both incredibly slow and horrifyingly rapid as I felt the rusty bolt snap, and suddenly I was airborne, my trajectory straight into an ad-hoc picnic that my family had begun to set up with fried chicken and glass pitchers of sweet tea. In that fleeting moment before impact, I saw their faces all looking up at me, wide-eyed and entertained, as if they had just caught me doing something they would never let me live down what when bam!
I smashed into the metal folding table, sending food, drinks, and wobbly lawn chairs flying into the air. I momentarily could feel platters and plates pelting me like hailstones in a hurricane, and as my vision blurred, the world slowed and shrunk into a vacuum of pain, leaving me crumpled on the trampled grass. My limbs screaming, my dignity all but crushed, my family circled around me, a chorus of exclamations and concern. As I struggled to catch my breath, overwhelmed by the sheer weight of the humiliation bearing down on me, I fell into a humble acceptance of the circumstances. It seemed that I could no longer keep myself apart from the one thing I feared most: the truth that no matter how cultivated, adult and somewhat pretentious I had become in my solitude, I was still part of the eccentric and flawed family I so desperately wanted to avoid. And somehow, that bizarre, unexpected and painful realization oddly felt like coming home.