The Secret Life of Walter Mitty (and Other Daydreams)
Walter Mitty drove past the hospital on his way to the A&P, his wife's voice trailing behind him like a punctured balloon. "You're driving too fast," she had said, but that was blocks ago. In the real world, he eased the family car to a respectful twenty-eight miles per hour. In the real world, he wore a gray hat and a muffler that his mother-in-law had given him last Christmas. But Walter Mitty had long ago learned that the real world was simply the waiting room for the world he truly inhabited.
Commander Mitty piloted the hydroplane through the raging Pacific gale. "Full reverse starboard!" he barked, and the crew snapped to attention. The Navy had never seen his equal. He lit a cigarette with one hand while calculating wind shear with the other. The enemy submarine surfaced directly in his path. Mitty smiled.
"Pick up some puppy biscuits," his wife said, and Commander Mitty vanished. He was now, quite suddenly, a great surgeon standing before a packed medical amphitheater. A millionaire had entered his operating room with a faulty heart. "The core of the difficulty," Mitty whispered to his team, "is a rare ossification of the left ventricle. Forceps." The audience held its breath. He made the incision. The millionaire would live.
"Walter!" His wife's voice cracked through the ether. He was standing in the middle of the produce aisle, holding a bag of puppy biscuits and a single, bewildered turnip. "You forgot the damn turnips," she said. He had not forgotten the turnips. He had simply, for a moment, been somewhere else. Somewhere with submarines and scalpels and the quiet, undefeated dignity of a man who could park a car without his wife's instructions. He paid the cashier, tucked the turnip into his pocket, and walked toward the exit. In the parking lot, a firing squad awaited him. He faced them with the faint, ironic smile of the truly unconquerable.