UNFORGETTABLE

"Rodman, why aren't you here yet?" Sandra's worried voice blared through Rodman's receiver.
"I'm stuck in heavy traffic Ma'am. I'd be there in twenty minutes", Rodman replied in a calm and assuring voice.
"Twenty minutes it is. Nothing more. If we lose this deal, you're done", Sandra threatened in frustration as she went off the line.

Still in traffic, John Rodman hurriedly grabbed the bag containing the paperworks, abandoned his car and raced off to the nearby Ferry Port. As soon as he boarded a boat, the clouds gathered, the sky grew dark, and amidst flashes of lightning and claps of thunder, the rain poured heavily.

As the boat headed down a stream flanked by huge bamboo trees on both sides. Suddenly, there was a clang, the boat had glided off a strongly rooted bamboo into the air, and then a whooossh, the boat was upside down burying its passengers underneath.

Meanwhile at AGIE Enterprise, Sandra was finding it difficult to hold up her investors. " We would take our leave now and schedule a meeting for another time", Mr Henry Mark said as he stood up to leave. "A few more minutes please, My associate would soon be..."

Buzz! Buzz!!
Buzz! Buzz!!

Her statement was truncated by the ringtone of Mr Henry's Samsung Galaxy S9.
"Excuse me Miss", he said as he picked up his call.
"What?", he screamed. "Which hospital?... Okay, I'd be there right away". He said as he barged out of Sandra's office followed by his assistants.

A furious Sandra reached for her cellphone when suddenly she froze. Right there on her TV screen was the corpse of Rodman underneath the headline: "Hero died saving billionaire's daughter and a host of others".
"No! No! No way! She screamed in agony as she reached for the remote to tune up the volume.

The reporter's voice calm but cold: "... has just saved ten co-passengers of a capsized boat, one of which was Henry Mark's daughter. Eyewitnesses reports that the deceased ensured the safety of everyone in a small raft he built but was bitten by a snake and was dead before they got ashore. What a sacrifice is greater?... What hero is better".

#El_Magnifico™

[[Culled from Raven Cage Poetry and Prose Ezine #44]]