Born To Write

The fog had just lifted off the swerving rural road when Brian noticed a hooded person walking alongside the road with their thumb out. Brian’s wife had told him he shouldn’t pick up hitchhikers, but it wasn’t in his nature to not help someone, so he pulled over and offered the young man a ride.

The young man sat in the car without saying a word. He was shivering and appeared to be sick. His face was drawn in and pale, as if he should probably see a doctor. He wasn’t sure if the young man was much of a conversationalist, but Brian was not one for silence.

“So what’s your name,” Brian asked; no response.

He decided to try another tactic: “ I can take you wherever it is you need to go…within reason,” he said with a chuckle. With that, the boy looked at him and told him his name was Mark and he didn’t know how far or where he was going.

Brian twisted his lip and raised his eyebrows in a look of confusion— how could he not know where he was going?— he thought to himself. He did have to make a stop at the grocery store: “I can drop you off there. That will get you down the road a little bit.” Mark nodded and said that was fine.

Mark was good with the arrangement, since he could not drive him near his house— Janet would kill him. Both of the men sat in silence until Mark finally said something: “ Do you think we all have a responsibility to protect each other?”

Brian turned the radio down and thought about it for a second and said, “ I think so. To be good human beings, we should always be looking out for each other.” Mark nodded and looked forward again.

Brian didn’t know what to think and was happy when he saw one of his son’s friends walking along the road and decided to give him a ride. Before he could pull over, Mark said, “Don’t pick him up.” “But he is one of my son’s friends. It’s ok.”

Brian shook his head and pulled over and rolled down the window. “Hey, Josh, do you want a…,” but before he could get the last word out, Josh pulled a handgun out of his jacket and pointed it at Brian. Brian froze in fear and didn’t know what to do when all of a sudden Mark opened the door into Josh hard.

When Josh hit the ground, the gun went flying, and soon he was flying after. Brian, still unable to move out of fear, yelled at Mark to get into the car and sped off down the road. He pulled his phone out to call the police. He described how he had pulled over and Josh pulled the gun on him and Mark, but when he looked over to get Mark’s last name for the police, there was no one there. “Oh no, I must have left him,” he thought, but he knew he was in the car when he took off.

He informed the police that he would meet them at the scene where the incident occurred and turned back after he saw police headed in that direction. When he arrived on the scene, the police were pulling Josh out of The ravine along with the gun. Brian had to know why he had done it, so he approached him.

“Why did you do that, Josh? I’ve known you all these years and your friends, Mike,” “I don’t know, just felt like it.” Brian stood there for a moment and then said, “im guess I’m glad Mark was there.”

Josh looked at him confused and said, “Who?” “Mark, the guy who slammed the door into you.” Josh chuckled and said, “You must be going crazy— there was no one there.” The police shoved him into the back of the car, and Brian just stood there in a daze.

The police took Brian’s statement, and he headed home. He didn’t know if he should tell Janet because he would get yelled at and the “I told you so.” He decided it was best to make up some other excuse for being late, so when he got home, he went directly to his office and did his regular one hour of news surfing to catch up on what was going on in the world.

He began flipping through the local news websites when he stopped, frozen, staring at the screen.

Today a young man was killed protecting a young woman from a man attempting to mug her this morning. The brave young man pictured above, by the name of Mark Porter, was called a hero by the woman’s family.

The picture staring at him was of the young man who had saved him from certain death. He was a hero in life as well as death.