Carl

Andrew Sawch

“I’m so ordinary; I gotta do something great to have people notice me.”

            Carl McFleary had been working at the same job for over 12 years. He had been driving the same car for 12 years and he had been eating the same lunch for 12 years. His live had been the same routine, over and over again. He never took vacations, he never celebrated his birthday and he never missed a day of work. It was clockwork and the only person it bothered was Carl.

            His life had been average for as long as he can remember. The only thing he had ever done in his life was win a spelling bee in the fifth grade, sadly his only accolade. He finished in the middle of his high school class and was a permanent backup on the football and baseball teams.  His coaches, in fact, only kept Carl on the teams because he was the only kid who was willing to scrape goose poop off the cleats he was in charge of cleaning after practice.  Carl’s college experience had been mediocre also. He attended Strasburg Community College in Pennsylvania, only 15 minutes from his hometown, and ended up being a bookkeeper at Trader Joe’s after graduation.

            One morning Carl awoke as usual at 6:45 from the same Sleepy’s Postrapedic, Extra Firm mattress he had slept on since high school (with the same Buzz Lightyear sheets). Everything seemed perfectly normal, except, instead of pressing the snooze button, Carl got up right away.  At first, he reached for his khakis, but found his legs slipping into his jeans.  When in the kitchen, he bypassed the Honey Nut Cheerios and orange juice and lit the stove for steak and eggs with coffee. Hi body began to quiver.  It never quivered before.  After breakfast, he climbed into his 1993 taupe Honda Civic and drove the usual fifteen minutes to work. As he approached his office to park in space 88E, Carl reached for his parking pass.  Out of the corner of his eye, he could see what looked like a flapping pair of female legs.  Could it be?  A woman dangling from his building? At this point, a crowd had begun to gather underneath the woman.  Bracing themselves for her fall.  The woman had been copying something at the copier when a file cabinet slipped and hit her in the stomach causing her to fall backwards out of the window.  Now her life was dangling from 25 stories up from the threads of her dress.   

            Carl stood with the crowd watching her for a good ten minutes when he finally heard what felt like his call to greatness.  Without wasting any time, Carl tore off his Wal-Mart tie and Sears shirt and sprinted up the stairs to the floor where the woman’s life was in peril.  Acting like a SWAT officer, he kicked down the door with strength he never knew he had and bolted toward her.  “Miss, my name is Carl McFleary, and I am here to save you.” Those words are something that Carl had wanted to say his whole life.           “Help me! Please help me!” she cried.  Carl, who normally had the muscles of a toothpick, suddenly looked and felt like a steroid abuser.  Slowly, he lifted the woman off of the window ledge and held her safely in his arms.  He knew she thought he was ugly; he might have even smelled, but for some reason, she hugged his scrawny chest and cried.

            Carl had been the hero for the day, and for his chivalrous efforts he received a fruit basket, bonus check and a coupon to Applebees.  The gift seemed awfully small for such a big deed, but Carl didn’t think so.  The day he used his coupon to order the trademark three-course combo, he was served by Gail, a quiet redhead who would become his future wife.