Prompt: He jumped to his feet.
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He jumped to his feet. He stood as still as the tree next to him. Listening. A leaf cracked beyond. The wings of a bird flapped quickly. Was the enemy approaching? Were they in danger? How could he warn them?
He was afraid to move. He listened. Nothing. Then, a tattering sound came from farther away. It was the sound of machine guns but they were not as close as he feared.
He quietly moved toward the makeshift tents, making sure to avoid a twig or a leaf as he walked.
“Germans,” he whispered. “We must go. Now.”
As if by a sixth sense, the others seemed to have heard. One by one they gathered up their sleeping bodies and began to move away from the sound of the machine guns.
--
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He sat sipping coffee, anticipating her arrival. She was a fashionable 30 minutes late. He might have worried, but tardiness was her way, the residue of an overbooked schedule as she tried to meet the demands of others. He looked around at the place she had chosen for their meeting. It was perfectly quaint with only six tables and a long bar. A painting of a nude reposing over the bar was unnerving, and he tried to be distracted by the other large paintings on the walls. His eyes kept sneaking back.
She swept through the door, her hair storm-blown, her eyes flashing as she sought him out, and then sparkling when she saw him. He jumped to his feet to accept her hug, holding her too long for just friends but not as long as had they been true lovers. In his eyes, she could see the desire she both hated and craved.
“You look fabulous,” he said even though he worried that she was too thin. “I’ve missed you.”
“I know,” she responded, “and I you.”
They shared lunch and a conversation that caught up with each other’s lives but studiously avoided the connection between them that neither understood. Seeing her again – though ever so briefly -- filled him with a contentment he could not have explained. He never once glanced back at the nude until they had hugged goodbye and she was back on the run. He paid the bill, sighed, and went back to his own separate life.
--Jim Van Loozen RBWG member
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He was dozing in his wall hugger recliner when the now familiar voice of the meteorologist brought him fully awake.
Yes folks, we're in for a repeat of the blizzard we're still trying to recover from.
Not even taking the time to reach for the lever that would lower his feet, he leapt from the recliner and hurried down the hall in a stumbling run to his office.
Fingers flying over the keyboard of his computer, he quickly accessed Expedia and booked himself on a flight leaving for the
He left the house with a single carry-on bag containing only one change of summer clothes, a swimsuit, and his laptop. Anything else he might need could be arranged for later courtesy of the half dozen credit cards in his wallet.
The important thing was that he not have to lift so much as a single additional shovel full of snow.
--Bruce Krug, RBWG member
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He jumped to his feet as if tazered, ready for anything. The irony of it struck him immediately. Unleashing the fight/flight impulse in its full glory when neither of these options was open. You can't fight someone else's diagnosis; can't flee from it successfully, either. You need to be there. You need to be comfortable with impotence. You need to be patient with the waiting; patient with the talking; patient when the talking turns to tears, perhaps, or when it ends. He sat down again, exhausted.
--Tom Hoyer, RBWG member
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He jumped to his feet. In one smooth, fast motion the Playboy magazine was shoved under his pillow. “Oh, hi, Mom. You’re home early!’
Although his voice sounded calm and casual, his eyes did not make contact with mine and his face was flushed. “What was that you were reading, Andy?”
Now the stammering started. “Oh,,jus jus just something for biology class on anatomy.” Pretty quick thinking for an eighteen year old, I thought, smiling to myself. But I decided not to push the issue any harder because, in the pile of mail I was holding, was a letter for him from
“This is for you”, I said as casually as I could. When he saw the formal return address, he wasted no time tearing the envelope apart and devouring its contents. The yell that preceded his laps around his bedroom was the loudest and longest I had ever heard. When he finally collapsed on his bed, I read the letter which confirmed that my son, Andy Wade, had not only been accepted but would receive a partial football scholarship which would cover half of his tuition as long as he made the cut for the team and carried, at least a B average. For Andy, both would be very doable. As I sat beside him and hugged him hard and long, I felt my heart would burst simultaneously with pride and pain because his dad, who had succumbed to cancer just three short months ago, could not be here with us to share this moment.
--Toni Worsham, RBWG member
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