April 3 — Cowardice

Andrew Collins
Aug 31, 2018 · 1 min read

“Hey, I have a non-work-related question for you.”

His supervisor paused and turned to him. He asked her about the prisoner penpal she had struck up a correspondence with. Could the friend who had facilitated the connection also connect him with a prisoner who wanted a penpal?

“Yeah I’m sure she’d be happy to do that. Let me reach out to her!”

“Great, I thought it was such a cool idea when you mentioned it last week, and I’ve been thinking about it and thinking I might like to do that, like as a good writing exercise.”

“Yeah,” she said, “and also just thinking about them and how if our positions were reversed, I would totally want someone to have that with.”

He nodded and she walked way. Yeah, of course there was that, the concern for the actual person. He cared about inmates too and wanted to love them. The writing exercise part was a secondary benefit. He’d just been too cowardly to say that.

Andrew Collins

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Freelancer and editor of Grassroots Pulse by day. Writer, husband, and Jesus-follower at all times. If things were simple, word would have gotten around.