A Flag
Amy looked at Ben as he walked through the door in the mud room.
“Oh my God! What happened to you?” she exclaimed.
Then she saw the blood on his shirt.
“Are you okay? Why is there blood on your shirt? Did you fall down the hill? You didn’t get bit, did you? Here, let me help you out of those clothes. You’re a mess,” she continued.
Ben stood there while Amy peppered him with a few more questions until she finally gave him a second to interrupt her.
“Well, that didn’t go as planned. I guess I should get ready for work,” Ben snuck in.
“Here, let’s go sit down. You can tell me what happened,” Amy interjected.
Ben proceeded to tell Amy about how things started great, and then how he heard a voice yelling for help. He told her about finding Ron, and how Ron didn’t know he could make a phone call from his watch.
Amy sat, listening to Ben’s recap of the past couple of hours, seeing the range of emotions in Ben’s face, from pleased with himself that he helped Ron, but disappointed in the photo shoot.
“Maybe you got the shot?” Amy tried to reassure Ben, “Did you check?”
“I’m 99% sure I didn’t. I forgot to set my camera back to continuous from the last time I was out.”
“Well, when you get some time, go check the pictures. Why don’t you call in sick. You’ve had a day?” Amy suggested.
“I think I’m just going to go to work and check later,” Ben replied, “I don’t think I really want to know right now. I’ll just focus on how I helped that dude.”
“Okay,” a comforting Amy responded, “I’ll make you a quick lunch while you get cleaned up before you go. Don’t worry, I’ll clean up the tick tree-foil seeds from everything.”
“You know what those are?” asked a surprised Ben.
“Of course. I traipsed through my share of woods when I was younger!” said Amy, and with a slight grin continued, “They’re kind of a pain to get off, but I know some tricks.”
“I knew I loved you for a good reason,” said Ben, with a sense of feeling better as he went away to get cleaned up.
Ben ate his lunch and went into the office. About halfway through the afternoon, John popped into Ben’s office. Ben mentioned that his appointment seemed to go well, and then John proceeded to fill Ben in on every shot during his round of golf until it was time for Ben to leave work.
Finally getting home, Amy surprised Ben with a porterhouse steak and had a beer ready for him.
“I know you had a rough day, figured this might help,” said Amy, gazing at Ben hoping his afternoon was uneventful.
“I love you,” said Ben, looking into Amy’s eyes, grateful that she was there for him on days like this day.
With dinner over, Ben got his camera from his backpack to see if there might be a chance he actually took a decent shot.
“Damn, how did she get my camera backpack so clean?” Ben thought.
Sitting on the couch, Ben loaded the memory card from his camera into his laptop and made the preview images as large as possible on the screen.
He chuckled.
“What?” questioned Amy with slight hesitation, but also with a sense of relief that Ben was chuckling.
“I missed it by this much,” said Ben, as he put his hands near each other, separated by about an inch.
“But at least I got a great picture of the flag!” said Ben, jokingly, while he slid his laptop across the couch for Amy to see.
“That is a great picture of the flag,” Amy said, joining Ben’s candor. “Nothing else?”
“Not really, but my picture of the ass of the train wasn’t that bad,” mentioned Ben.
“Well, that guy might still be lying there if you didn’t come along,” Amy reminded Ben.
“Yeah, I guess I at least have an excuse for not getting the picture,” commented Ben.
Amy smiled at Ben and mouthed the words, “I love you!”
Ben mouthed the words back, “I love you, too.”
Ben closed the image previews and opened up one of his six social media apps. He noticed the headline from the group, Happenings Around Town: “Local Firefighter Gets Great Shot of Train!”
Ben read:
“A local firefighter, Maddoc Johnson, caught what might be an award-winning shot of Big Boy #4014 as it sped through town today. After rescuing a local resident who was trapped by a fallen tree, he had just enough time to catch a picture of the train as it sped by. Maddoc told Happenings, “Yeah, the guy we saved is lucky that this other dude came around and heard him, and I guess I’m lucky that dude came around at the time he did and called us. We cut the tree off of the guy, I heard the train getting close, and pulled out my phone. Guess I got lucky!” Happenings reached out to Union Pacific Railroad and they mentioned being interested in paying the firefighter for the photograph. A representative from U.P. said, “It’s a great story, the firefighter saving that man’s life and still getting such a great image of Big Boy.”
Ben sighed, “You’re welcome.”
Amy looked at Ben who had closed his laptop, “Did you say something?”
“Just that I love you,” replied Ben.
Amy scooched to Ben’s side of the couch, leaned her head on Ben’s shoulder, and whispered in his ear, “My hero.”
Ben’s Camera Roll
Praire Path Superhighway
He thought how Amy would call it the “Prairie Path Superhighway,” because usually it was filled with joggers and bikers, but Ben enjoyed the path. He found it a seclusion of nature as it was bounded by trees on both sides creating a canopy of green in the summer for much of a walk.
Jungle Path
In Ben’s mind, he pictured himself cutting through the Amazon Rainforest, on a quest to find a lost treasure, when in reality it was just walking through prairie plants while paying attention to the path.
Recon
A smile came to his face as one image was just about perfect. He noted all of the camera settings from the F-Stop and shutter speed, to the focus distance and the zoom length, all the while smiling.
Beauty On the Way Home
Ben chuckled, then thought, “I hope there will be some birds or flowers. Oh yeah, it will be better if I change the shutter to single picture instead of high-speed.”
End of the Train
As the last car of the train disappeared behind the trees, Ben snapped one more shot.
A Nice Flag
“But at least I got a great picture of the flag!” said Ben, jokingly, while he slid his laptop across the couch for Amy to see.