News spread, as there was going to be a speech held at the Lincoln Memorial. Not only the fact that it was at Lincoln Memorial which means it was important, but Matthew Jackson King Jr. was the spokesperson. Matthew Jackson King Jr. was a famous spokesperson who talked motivational speeches to people. The speech will be televised and millions will be watching. The topic was about life and earth and its problems.


Life and earth and its problems? What could that be about, Andrew thought. Our government? Our environment? Our future? Andrew’s head was flooding with ideas . He was a curious kid when it came to speeches.
…

“Hey Matthew,” Cory Rudner called out. Cory was Matthew assistant. He drives him to places, schedules the meetings, make plans, and sometimes be a bodyguard.

“Yeah?” Matthew responded.

“Have you looked at the news lately?”

“Why?”

“Well…have you noticed that our country’s not progressing and our earth is getting destroyed?”

“What do you mean?”

“Like, our country’s not moving forward. It’s getting worse because the citizens are starting to get careless. And also, our planet getting warmer by the year due to what we do.”

“Yeah, I understand what you mean, but…..what do you want me to do about it?”

“Well, I was thinking…since you’re really good at speeches, do you think you could give a speech to the citizens of United States about the issue and its problem?”

Matthew paused and thought for a moment. Then, he opened his mouth and said,
“Let me think about that. I’ll call you when I make a decision.”

Afternoon turned to night as the call came. Cory picked the phone up.

“I’m going to make a speech at the Lincoln Memorial tomorrow. Schedule it.” That is all what Matthew said and he hung up.


…













Matthew was sitting in the passenger seat of the black mini-van heading toward the Lincoln Memorial. The orange glazing ball was still hiding behind the buildings . Numbers of paparazzi cars were behind and beside the van following it like the game follow the leader. Cory was driving. He sighed next to Matthew.

“Look, even though I convinced you, you don’t have to do it,” Cory said.

“I’m sure I want to do it,” Matthew responded in a deep clear voice.

“Are sure? Because we could just turn around….”

“I’m very positive,” Matthew interrupted.

“But what if they don’t get the message? What if they just laugh at us and think we’re a joke?

Matthew opened his mouth but no words came out. He was silent for a minute until he said,
“Well, all we have to do is hope they’ll get the message correctly. I feel that this is a critical thing to talk about.”

They said nothing else for the rest of the car ride.

When Matthew stepped out of the car, he was greeted by the chilly frigid wind biting his face with its coldness. He looked at the sun which had now just shown its face behind the buildings. Then, all of sudden, he was blinded by lights from the camera flashes. Matthew was shocked and rubbed his face to recover. He could hear news reporters asking him questions from all directions. After the bodyguards got off the car, they quickly rushed toward Matthew and told the media mob to back up. The bodyguards made a pathway for Matthew to walk. Matthew tried to ignore the cameras flashes along the way. When he reached to the podium, he was greeted by young businessmen with fancy gray suits. They gave him a cordial smile as they escorted him to the stage.
“Good luck,” one of them said as Matthew entered the stage. Matthew turned around and gave a quick thanks to them. When he turned back the crowd he was awed by the number of people there were. Every single of them were wearing winter coats as they all stared at Matthew. Matthew snapped back to reality and he adjusted the mic stand to his height. He took a breath seeing the white breath coming out of mouth. He cleared his throat. This is it. It all comes down to this.

“First of all I like to thank you for coming out here and hear my speech. I feel that this is a vital topic to talk about.

Well as you know, the topic that I am going to talk about is life and earth and its problems. If you read the newspaper, watch the news, or even maybe go outside, you might be able to tell that things are changing…in a bad way.

“As a country, we are not moving forward. Instead, we’re going backwards. Higher unemployment rates, more crime scenes, more murder scenes, drug use, and more high school drop-outs. Our country’s debt is so humongous, it’s immeasurable. We blame the government for all of this. The government this, the government that…..but it’s not just them. Some might be the government’s fault, but it’s us too. We, the citizens of United States. We commit crimes. We commit drugs. We do drugs. We convince people to do drugs. We drop out of school. No wonder we can’t have any people to fill in jobs. I know the majority of us might not be doing it, but we have enough to point out. Let’s stop doing this. Let’s change. Let’s be the people we wanted to be, the dream you’ve always want to accomplish, the job you always wanted to have; not a high school drop-out that gets money by selling drugs. Don’t do any stupid things or make any stupid decisions that can change your life. People always use that word YOLO standing for “You Only Live Once”. Well, if you only live once, make that life count.

“What was once the luscious green grass is now dry hay-looking grass. As we hear the news and read at the newspaper we hear stories about the arctic ice melting. We hear Amazon trees getting cut down. We hear the air’s pollution. We hear the unusual warm weather and random tornadoes. This is all global warming. Who is causing this, we ask. Well, the answer is, we are. We are hurting our own beautiful planet. Our planet that we live in. We have great saving energy ideas but we balance that out negatively by wasting energy. We’re wasting energy, water, and creating pollution. We need to make a change. If one person takes the plug out after they’re finished with charging their phone, we won’t be saving that much energy. But, if every citizen in the United States did that, boy we would be saving an eminent amount of energy. Little things count and everybody does it, it turns it to a big thing. Let’s progress one by one.

Overall, I just want to say protect your life and earth. There are so much good things you can do to both of them.”

The crowd was still as a statue and was silent. He could hear is heart pumping fast. A clap came frond the crowd followed by a few more. Soon, all the people were clapping and whooping. Matthew could not resist a smile on his face. The sun was at its point of zenith and was beating down on him. Even though it was winter and cold, he could feel the sun congratulating him by trying to give him warmth. Matthew gave a little wave and walked off the stage. He was again crowded by the paparazzi, but it didn’t bother him. He even answered some of their questions. When he finally got into the car, he took a deep breath of relief.

“Good job. I think we’re going to move forward,” Cory said next to him.

Yes. I like those words. Moving forward.