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The Works of Mark Edgemon from All-Creatures.org

Mark Edgemon has been writing for 30 years. He writes and publishes short stories, articles, poetry and scripts, as well as, produces audio comedy productions for over 700 radio stations nationwide.

Contact Mark through his website, Creator and the Catalyst.

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Katherine, who never married and was considered past the age of marrying, contemplated the nature of her existence, at 80 years of age. She always had friends and gentlemen callers, but now most of them were dead or dying off and she felt stranded, alone in the world. In excellent health, she felt isolated, due to her good physical condition, which was unlike others her age, who had health complications, due to succumbing to aging related diseases.

Her friends would always turn to her when they needed help. Katherine was especially good at one-thing…conflicts. Where most people would shy from altercations with legal matters, financial negotiations, contractual disagreements and the like, she would plow through them with great ease, mainly because she had a peacemaker’s heart. She wasn’t afraid of conflicts…she thrived in them.

One day, while dining in a restaurant, an elderly woman began choking at a table near her. The woman was with a senior group, who were not paying her any mind, as she was gasping for breath. Katherine jumped to her feet and pounded in the center of the choking woman’s back, dislodging the food that was blocking her windpipe. She leaned the woman carefully to the ground and performed mouth-to-mouth resuscitation, until she was breathing on her own.

When she was finished, there were no clapping or standing ovations, just everyone minding their own business without a concern for anyone other than themselves.

This surprised Katherine and remained in her thoughts over the next several days.

She returned to the same restaurant a week later, (she did love their salads), and was greeted by the manager who was very excited. He told her that the woman’s son had flown into town when he heard about the incident concerning his mother and gave the manager a check to be made out to the person who saved his mother’s life. The manager handed the check to Katherine with a huge grin on his face. When she looked at it, she was astounded at the amount of the check. It was for $5,000.00. She couldn’t believe it!

Contacted by the restaurant manager, the press was there in minutes. They wrote a feature story in the evening’s newspaper and the news coverage was seen on all of the local news channels.

The next day, dozens of offers for jobs came in to the newspapers and television stations for Katherine. They forwarded them to her to her great surprise.

One young man felt he was being railroaded to prison by a defending attorney appointed to him by the court, who he felt was paid off by the prosecutor. Katherine looked into the situation and indeed discovered a cushy deal between the local prosecutor and several of the court appointed attorneys, who was sending their clients to jail without concern whether or not they were guilty or innocent.

She gathered evidence from court appointed wiretaps and evening surveillance and presented her findings not to the sitting judge on the case, who she suspected of being complicit in receiving payola in the form of bribes to pervert justice, but to a federal grand jury, who were investigating ongoing judicial corruption.

A few days later, it all hit the fan! The prosecutor and the court appointed attorney along with the sitting judge were arrested and sent to the federal penitentiary while awaiting trial. The young man was set free. Although he could not pay her, he worked for her, doing household chores and yard service, until he paid off his debt.

Meanwhile, Katherine had made a name for herself. She set up a downtown office and had clients on a waiting list. She was busy, actually exhilarated and by using her gift, which she down played most of her life, because it came so easy to her, from that moment on, she was never lonely again.

Moral: Do not wait for special occasions to exchange gifts with others, especially of the spiritual kind.

Copyright © 2008 Mark Edgemon

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