A Good Cause

When I opened my Google reader this morning, a bunch of the blogs I follow were highlighting a very special bloghop. It's called "Overcoming Adversity", hosted by Nick Wilford over at Scattergun Scribblings. It's a hop designed to help his son, who has cerebral palsy, get into college. Something not readily available for special needs students in Scotland. Nick plans on compiling an anthology of the posts, with the proceeds going to help fund his son's schooling.

I'm totally down with that.

This seemed like a good idea for a great cause and, lucky for me, I was able to still sign up. How I missed it, initially, I have no clue. So, at about 3:00 pm today, I did just that....having no idea what I'm going to write, but I figure I'll come up with something.....so, here goes.....

The Last Minute

"Look...no pressure or anything...but, if you don't do this, it's going to be the end of the human race. We have five minutes left!"

"Yeah, no pressure....sure...right..." Simon said into his com-link, trying to keep the utter panic out of his voice. His hands were shaking like a wino suffering from the DTs.

Because that's what he was. Or, at least, had been. He didn't like to think of himself as a "wino" anymore. He hadn't had a drink in months....though, sometimes, those months felt like years. He licked his lips.

He sure could use a drink.

"No!", he thought...he didn't need the booze. Not anymore.

"You sure about this thing?" Simon asked, trying to steady the wire clippers in his left hand. The back of his right hand wiping sweat from his furrowed brow.

"As sure as we can be...." the voice on the other end of the com-link said. "If it blows, that's it. Ta-ta terra firma. Look, I know your training doesn't even begin to cover this, but you were the one in the chamber when it locked, so we're a little behind the eight-ball here."

Karlov was scared and, if he was scared, Simon should be too....he knew that. "We only have five minutes left...." Simon muttered to himself.

"Four minutes left, Simon!" the captain called over the link.

 It had seemed like just yesterday he had heard of the massive, global, conspiracy that had replaced the leaders of the world with slimy, alien impostors. These impostors had really made a mess of things....probably more so than their real counterparts would have done.

Maybe.

Everything had been geared to throw the planet into chaos, making Earth ripe for an invasion force from a dying planet. They had succeeded, for the most part. That is, until the resistance movement found the one thing the really fouled the aliens up.

Pencils. Well, the graphite in the pencils was the real anathema to the P'locus as they slowly revealed themselves to be called.  

Simon's hands trembled more and he began sweating profusely.

"Three minutes, Simon. Do you have the plate off? Can you see the wires?"

"I've had the plate off", Simon said slowly, "which wire?"

"You've..." Karlov stammered, then blurted out, "the green wire. Cut the green wire!"

"Green wire....green wire...green wire..." Simon exhaled, fingering the five wires before him.

"Quit gabbin' and cut the damn wire! Two minutes left!" the captain screamed into Simon's earpiece.

"Captain...I think there's something I should have told you years ago." Simon said.

"What's that?" Karlov said, almost breathless.

"I'm colorblind." Simon said, his hands suddenly stopped shaking.

For a second there was nothing but static on the other end of Simon's earpiece.

"Simon, just cut one....and pray.", Karlov said low, "Last minute."

And he did...suddenly knowing in the bottom of his heart that he was given the chance to crawl out from the bottom of the bottle for a purpose.

This was that purpose.

Simon took a deep breath and cut a wire.




Years later, when he would retell the story to his children and, then later, grandchildren....he'd leave out the part about where he had pissed his pants.



Thanks for hosting this hop, Nick, and best wishes on your son's academic future.