Picture by Mon Lan from Google Maps
THAT HOLIDAY
© Kelvin M. Knight, 2019
The air crackled with excitement. Standing at the rear of the crowd about to surge forward, Peter tried to be a part of the crowd without feeling apart from the crowd.
Who was he kidding. He hated crowds. For decades, he’d prided himself on always standing apart from the crowd. He used to argue fiercely that he would even stand apart if he was caught up in an emergency situation and everyone was running for their lives. Until that day it happened to him.
When this crowd surged forward to touch that golden boulder, he tasted smoke, he heard screaming and choking, then he was stampeding to that emergency exit, his elbows sharper than everyone else’s.
Everyone else.
So many people didn’t make it, including children and pregnant mothers. His selfishness saddened him deeply, but what could he do? When it came to the crunch, he was human after all.
(150 words)
The above story was written in response to the What Pegman Saw prompt, which this week took us to:
You are warmly invited to the Inlinkz link party to read other globetrotting contributors’ stories inspired by this week’s prompt.
Thank you, as ever, Karen and Josh, for hosting this great weekly prompt, and for everyone who takes part in posting their stories, and those who support this community by reading and commenting.