The Unpopular Prince
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.

The Unpopular Prince

At Tyler High School, there were more attractive and popular kids than at any other schools in the city. Kevin Prince wanted to be popular, he wasn’t bad looking and he was somewhat talented, but he tried too hard to get attention and acceptance, so that it turned the popular kids off, who then made him the butt of their jokes and put downs.

Kevin continued to press for attention. He wanted so to be invited to their parties and looked at with respect. But the more he tried to be popular, the more they thought less of him. It seemed that Kevin was locked out and would not be able to get in with the in crowd.

One day he heard over the loudspeaker an announcement that the drama club was holding auditions for a new school play. Wow, this would be a way for him to get some attention. He showed up after school and read for the lead. The drama teacher took a special interest in him. She saw something that was beneath the surface and felt he just needed a little extra attention to bring out his hidden talents.

She chose him for the lead over other popular kids, which was a first for him and helped him with stage direction and character development.

On the day of the play he was nervous. He had a speech within the play two pages long and he was worried that he would forget and make a fool of himself. Suddenly, he wasn’t concerned about being popular or wanting attention. He was focused on not screwing up and embarrassing himself.

When his time had come and the stage was vacant of other actors and it was him alone on the stage, what he feared had happened…he forgot the lines. Not all of them, just the ones that began the speech.

As he opened his mouth, he started to make up dialogue in order to stall for time, until he could figure out the beginning of the speech. He was so scared that there was a certain energy about him and it could be felt by the audience. They didn’t know he was scared. They thought he was the greatest actor they had ever seen.

When he was finished and off stage, he wondered how he did. He got through it, but he didn’t know what the audience, his fellow classmates thought of his performance.

During the curtain call, everyone got polite applause until Kevin came out at the end. To his shock and surprise, the entire audience stood to their feet and gave thunderous applause, standing and clapping loudly for this guy that they were indifferent to an hour earlier. He couldn’t believe it and he was touched, trying to hold back the tears.

Later in the day, as he was getting pats on the back and kind words of congratulations, he realized that all he really wanted was to be relevant. And when he was relevant to himself, he was indeed relevant to everyone else.

It seems that people sense how a person sees themselves and reflect that view back to them.

Copyright © 2008 Mark Edgemon

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