An Essay on Bravery

You're walking down the street, coming home from school, and all of a sudden you hear a shrill voice calling "Help! Help!" You run toward the voice and when you run about a block up the street you smell smoke. You look up and see a house totally engulfed in flames. You see a woman on the lawn of the burning building crying, "Help! Help! My baby's inside!"

"Inside the burning building?" you ask. The woman nods her head up and down. You tell her not to worry, that you'll save her baby. You run inside. Heat surrounds you. Your eyes sting and you can heardly breathe with all of the smoke, but you keep progressing because you know that you've got to save that baby.

You make your way up the stairs, flames jumping at you from everywhere. You hear a young, high-pitched voice crying. You look around and see the baby to your right in a play pen crying its heart out. You grab the baby and you're about to walk downstairs when you see that the entrance to the stairway is blocked by a wall of flame. You run away from the stairs and search for another way out. You realize that you'll have to jump out a window. You eventually find one. You're hesitant, but you think that a two story fall shouldn't be too bad. Besides, you've got to get the baby and yourself out of this burning inferno. You take a running start and leap out of the window. When you land, the wind is knocked out of you. As you get up, a news van that came to film the fire decies they should get the story of the baby's rescue. You appear on the news and become a hero in your neighborhood.

Then you wake up.

You've been daydreaming. Dreaming that you were a great hero who accomplished an amazing feat; a Champion who has completed what most others would fear to have done. Most everyone longs for an opportunity to prove how courageous they are. They long to receive fame and glory for their heroic accomplishments. There are examples of this everywhere, in short stories such as, "The Occurance at Owl Creek Bridge," written by Ambrose Bierce; examples in real life, such as the circumstances that Corrie Ten Boom experienced; and examples in plays such as "The Tell Tale Heart" by Edgar Allen Poe.