The Green Suitcase

Shifting her glance to the side of the chair she noticed a small green suitcase.  Although she had never seen the suitcase before, she had an idea of what it contained.  Slowly she turned to her left and saw another suitcase, orange this time, covered in what appeared to be red and black electrical wires.      Why? was the only question she could ask.  Why me?  What did I do?  Although Mary was frozen in her tracks, she knew if she didn’t do something fast, her life would end.  Time seemed to stand still as the events of her life replayed in her head.   

Something had to be done quickly if Mary die today.  First, she had to find a way to cut through the rope that was holding her to the chair, then somehow disarm the bomb that was threatening her life.  Looking back to her right side again, Mary knew what she was going to do: tip the chair over and crawl to the back bedroom where she kept her art supplies.  There was a paper cutter there, and she thought she could open it with her mouth. If she could, she might be able to carefully cut the rope off of her hands and then her feet.

Finally, after crawling on her hands and knees, she found what she was looking for.  Mary knew she had to disarm the bomb as fast as she could, so she went straight to work.  By kneeling on the paper cutter to hold it still and then positioning her hands under the blade, she was ready to go to work.  There was only one problem:  how would she press the blade down?  

    Suddenly, Mary heard it.  It seemed as though the bomb was actually talking to her, counting down, “Thirty-five, thirty-four...”  Acting on an impulse, Mary pushed the blade down with one hard push of her head.  Amazingly, she felt the cold blade touch her hands!  The rope had been cut through!

    Before she could could react, though, she heard the voice of the bomb again:  “Twenty-one, twenty...”  Mary knew the end of her life was closing in on her, but she gave one last effort to crawl back out into the living room and disarm the explosives.

    As she rounded the corner, she knew it would take an act of God to save her.  Her only option was to try to break the suitcase and hope nothing detonated.  “Ten, nine...” time was running out.

    Mary gave a final push for life, and as the bomb said “five, four,”  tripped and fell just short of the suitcase.  All she could think of was death.  

“Two, one, zero........” Mary’s world went dark.