Picture Prompt-4317

“How come he’s just standing there?”  She was more than aggravated at her husband.  He had been lagging behind ever since they started this tour, and now he’s holding up the whole group.  She lost patience and yelled, “Joe!  Get over here!  Everybody’s waiting for you!”
‘

Unknown to his wife, Joe was in a panic.  He did the unthinkable, looked down.  His legs were shaking.  He couldn’t move.  He was so scared he couldn’t even reach out to the side railing.  Joe was frozen in that spot.

“Joe!  Get over here!  They’re going to go ahead without us!”  She really didn’t care that Joe was stuck there.  Didn’t care and didn’t even want to know.  She thought this trip would bring them back together.  Her visions of camping out, sleeping in a tent made for two, romantic evenings by the warm fire, all of these things were her expectations as she planned the trip.  

Joe wasn’t so romantically inclined, and thought the whole idea was a waste of money.  Give him a comfortable hotel room, room service, and a pool.  That was his idea of a vacation.  Meanwhile he was glued to the center of a moving, uneven bridge if you can even describe it as such.  His feet simply would not move forward or back.  He couldn’t help but look down, and felt woozy.  He could faintly hear someone yelling but his ears were drumming in his head.  He started to sway forward and thankfully grabbed the rail.  Joe thought he couldn’t make it, he’d just fall down into that gorge.  

The guide finally took notice of what was happening.  Joe’s wife was going on and on about her husband and how he wasn’t listening.  The guide almost immediately felt sorry for Joe.  He’d seen the couple’s actions and reactions and didn’t think there was a lot of love there, at least not anymore.  The guide cautiously, carefully and slowly made his way back down the bridge to Joe.  He’d seen this before, this paralyzingly fear.  He started to talk softly to Joe, calming him, reassuring Joe that he would lead him to safety.

To everyone’s surprise, most of all Joe’s, his wife ran over and hugged him.  She had tears in her eyes and she held Joe’s face in her hands.  “I’m so sorry, Joe.  I didn’t realize how frightening that was for you.  I’m sorry.  So glad you’re safe.  I love you.”

https://allaboutwritingandmore.wordpress.com/2017/01/14/4317/