Thursday, March 27, 2008

Prompt from Twitterlit: "Jeremy Marsh sat with the rest of the live studio audience feeling unusually conspiucous"


Jeremy Marsh sat with the rest of the live studio audience feeling unusually conspicuous. The 4th son in a family of 5 sons he had spent most of his life staying in the background. He wasn’t the tallest, strongest, fastest, smartest or even the handsomest. If he could be described as being the best of anything he was the steadiest. He stayed on course. He finished college. He worked hard. His apartment was neat an organized. What else would you expect from an engineer?
He hadn’t played sports in either high school or college, too many comparisons there with his older brothers. Instead he went out for the solo sort of things, skiing, surfing and rock-climbing. Going it alone, avoiding the spotlight and that’s how he had ended up here about to be in the spotlight.
It had been a typical Saturday. He’d left the house early, avoiding the crowds and had spent the better part of the morning climbing a couple of rocks up at Joshua Tree. He was about to call it a day, and then for some inexplicable reason decided to go for one more. On his way up he had seen signs of a mountain lion and then he had felt dust and rock falling on his head. He was cautious and had looked around. He didn’t see anything but he knew something was watching him. He continued his ascent and then he saw it. It was one of the biggest cats he had ever seen. It was crouched and watching something on a ledge just off to his right. Then he saw the auburn hair and when she turned, the greenest eyes he had ever seen.
He hadn’t done anything that anyone else in the same position would have done. He scared the cat away and saved the girl. They were calling him a hero. Well she had called him a hero and then the word kind of spread. So here he was waiting for them to call him up on stage to talk about his “daring rescue.” He wanted it all to just be over. Especially since the green eyed girl wasn’t speaking to him now. Wasn’t happily ever after supposed to come after the “daring rescue”?
Jeremy sighed and wished it was all over and he could just go home.

(This is part two of this post)

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