"Roped In" by Alison Rice Bruster
– “How long have you been rock climbing?”
The professor praised my speech and raved about my clever visual aid.
Alison Rice Bruster comes from a long line of women who love the written word. The granddaughter of a librarian, daughter of an English teacher, and sister of a novelist, she was destined to be an avid reader and writer. After a career spent finding the voices of senior business executives, she is writing a new chapter. She holds a BA in English Literature from Queens University of Charlotte and lives in Fort Mill, S.C. She is a member of the Charlotte Writers Club, Charlotte Lit, and the North Carolina Writers Network.
Author’s Talk
Alison Rice Bruster
This incident sprang into my mind immediately when I heard the theme for this collection would be “Foolhardy.” That was a surprising development because I honestly had not thought about the events described in the story since I finished college more than 40 years ago.
The memory burst back into my consciousness fully formed and so vividly drawn that I could almost see the events unfolding before me. And as I recalled what happened, I found myself laughing out loud. At the time it was happening, I found the experience embarrassing. The gift of time, however, showed me the humor in the situation. That’s when I knew I had to write about it.
Most of the writing I’ve done recently has focused on events that happened in the last 10-15 years. Casting myself back to the era when I was a college student was a new writing experience for me, and I enjoyed the challenge.
One thing I was clear about from the start was that the story would begin with the chicken. After all, watching my roommate teach the class how to dismember that bird was the key driver of the action that followed. Even though my instincts and choices contributed to the outcome, without the chicken, I think the story would have unspooled much differently—and been a lot less amusing.
Coming back to the chicken at the end of the story felt like the right way to close out the narrative. After all, I have it to thank for an indelible experience that surfaced from the depths of my subconscious as a vibrant memory, leaving me with a fun story to tell.
