Feelings and Reactions

Story · all 20 words

Three Minutes

My brother asked me to give the speech at his wedding, and for six weeks I was quietly stressed about it in a way I did not admit to a single person.

I am not frightened of very much. I am frightened of standing in front of two hundred people who are all looking directly at me and waiting, politely, to laugh.

I wrote four versions. The first was far too long. The second was funny in a way that would have made my mother upset, so it went in the bin. The third I showed to my sister, who read it twice and then said, very kindly, that she was slightly confused about who the story was actually about.

On the day I was completely calm until the food arrived. Then somebody put a microphone on the table in front of me and my mood changed in about four seconds. My hands went wet and I did not feel like eating anything at all. My sister told me to calm down and drink some water, which is the least useful sentence in any language.

The speech itself lasted three minutes. I forgot one line and said another one twice, and there was a moment in the middle where nobody laughed at all and I was so embarrassed that I seriously considered simply sitting down. Then my uncle laughed – very loudly, slightly late, and entirely on purpose – and after that it was fine.

When I finished I was so relieved that I did not hear the clapping. My brother stood up and hugged me for slightly too long, and I was shocked to discover that I was close to crying. My mother was delighted and told four separate people that I had written every word myself. My father said “good”, which from him is a standing ovation.

Two things surprised me afterwards. The first was that I was not satisfied at all. I kept thinking about the line I forgot, and I was disappointed with myself and annoyed for a whole week about ninety seconds of my own life. Nobody else remembered it by the Tuesday.

The second was my cousin Hala. She told me quietly that she was jealous, because in thirty-one years nobody had ever asked her to speak at anything. I had genuinely never thought about that, and I felt slightly guilty for complaining about a thing she would have loved to do. So I told her she is giving the speech at my wedding, which did cheer up the entire table.

My brother sent one message that night: “Thank you. You have no idea.” I am extremely grateful that he asked me, and I would say no immediately if he ever asked again. Weddings are annoying like that.