Writing prompt: "Public Speaking"

He’d always hated speaking in public.

Even since he was a kid. Jesse remembered with startling clarity the time he had to deliver an oral report on 4th grade on the Iroquios Indians. He tried all the tricks his mom had given him… practicing in front of the mirror (this just reminded him of how his hair insisted on sticking up in that one spot on the back of his head), looked at people’s foreheads instead of directly in their eyes (Philip Overmire had a HUGE forehead, like you could go to a drive-in and watch a new release on that thing, which only served to distract him thinking about the new Spider-Man flick) and picture everyone in their underwear (he would really rather not picture Philip in his underwear, or any other boy for that matter. Doing that with girls seemed wrong, somehow, and only made him blush even more than he already was). All he could do was try to ignore the creeping flush on his cheeks and neck, well aware of their heat, and hope that nobody else noticed it from their seats in the classroom. He raced through the report, focusing only on his thudding heart and trying to finish reading his notes as quickly as possible.

As school progressed, he simply made a nervous sort of peace with the fact that public speaking was simultaneously to be dreaded and something to finish as quickly as possible. His resignation to this fact made it almost tolerable in some weird way.

Once he graduated college, guess what? Yep, he never needed to make an oral presentation again. He knew he wouldn’t, but of course attempting to convince his teachers of this along the way never worked. They didn’t care. And once he knew public speaking was a skill that he would never need, he didn’t care, either. It was fine to just forget all about it. He didn’t need to speak publicly.

He wished he could forget about it today. He wished with all of his might that he had some dull desk job and he was off at a forgettable work conference, about to deliver an equally dull presentation to a bunch of guys suited up in the air-conditioned room, outwardly seeming to pay attention but occasionally sneaking glances to the large windows of the conference rooms where just outside palm trees swayed, promising a fun time later that afternoon.

Jesse pictured himself as a college professor. Imagine that? Ha. Speaking publicly every day to a group of college kids who didn’t care WHAT he said, as long as they read the assigned pages and let their phones do the listening for them.

He saw himself as an alcoholic. Tentatively entering the double doors for the first time, about to bare his soul to a bunch of strangers and confess to the dirty deeds for which an excess of booze held him responsible. “Hello, my name is Jesse Grayson. I am an alcoholic.” Getting his job back. Getting his dignity back. Getting his life back.

But his life was over. It had ended last week and it would never come back, ever again.

Game time.

He stood up, hands twisting a tissue into a ball. His palms sweated. He reached for another tissue, about to dab his palms, when suddenly the tissue took a turn north and he pressed the tissue fiercely into his eyes.

“Good morning. My name is Jesse Grayson. My daughter Jessica was killed in last week’s school shooting, and I have something to say.”