“You have to let me work.” I argued quietly with Jasmine as we scrubbed our already raw skin cleaner.
“If the mother dies they’ll all die.” She replied shortly.
“That doesn’t mean—“ I growled under my breath as she backed into the operating room.
“I can’t control this bleed!” Jasmine’s breathing was ragged after six hours of surgery, “You’ll have to do a cesarean.”
“Fine.” I said, sliding a scalpel over the mother’s shaved abdomen. An intern held open the skin as I dipped a finger inside to guide out the last kitten. I rushed it to an oxygen chamber and left Jasmine to try to save the mother. Oxygen gas blew by the kitten’s pitiful blue snout and I pushed gently on its frail chest in the motions of CPR but nothing helped. Meanwhile Jasmine screamed for a defibrillator and the body of the Queen jolted with electricity.
Jasmine’s Aunt waited in the aptly named waiting room, head in her hands. She had rushed her cat in to the hospital at the first pangs of labor, but she worried that even that had been too late. It was the cat’s second birth of the season, and thus more dangerous. Dr. Jasmine strode to Aunt Gloria to tell her the news. Her doctor’s coat billowed behind her and her long blonde hair fluttered in the breeze that seemed to perforate the hospital. She knelt next to Aunt Gloria and looked up at her, tears of sympathy glistening in her eyes.
“One of the kittens had a rare birth defect found only in one in ten thousand births.” She gathered Aunt Gloria’s hands in hers, “Can I preserve the body in one of my specimen jars?”
Dr. Meghan stomped up behind Dr. Jasmine and knocked her unconscious with a patient chart.
“So sorry about that. We try to keep her out of patient contact. So many lawsuits…”
Aunt Gloria blinked, “What? Was she telling the truth?”
Dr. Meghan sighed, “Yes, but the mother and the other three kittens survived.”
Aunt Gloria sobbed into her hands as Dr. Meghan led her into the Baby room where the mother cat was tiredly curled around her kittens.
-M
Monday, August 23, 2010
Sunday, August 8, 2010
Doug: Ronin
Piano. It seems like a lot of significant times in my life are heavy on the piano. It is an instrument that is hard to mistake, the sound is unlike any other. It rolls over you, the music seems inevitable, like a tidal wave. Catches you up and spits you out on the other shore, exhausted, satisfied, empty/full at the same time.
There’s something simmering inside of me. Anger I can’t get seem to get out. I wonder if it comes from the contempt or genuine offensives. I feel old, bitter, angry. So full of this rage that I can’t seem to let go.
How can I be so lonely when I’m among so many friends?
Every instinct in me says ‘Go. Get away from this. It’s long past time for you to be different.’ I’ve never run from a fight in my life, but I fear staying so much. But to leave, without any kind of resolution…
I wish I was a less honest man. Then I would have better explanations. Reasons. Instead… instead I should tell the truth.
Hate fills me up again. Disgust. Rage. I wish it would show itself on my skin so people would see who I am. This curse needs to be seen, revealed. Then maybe I’ll be free of it.
Right. Like you’ll ever be free of this wanderlust. Like you’ll ever stop resenting anything tying you to one place. Like you’ll ever treat anyplace as home anymore. Like you have a home. Home is where the heart is.
What heart?
-Doug
I just want to be okay, be okay, be okay today” Ingrid Michaelson “Be okay”
There’s something simmering inside of me. Anger I can’t get seem to get out. I wonder if it comes from the contempt or genuine offensives. I feel old, bitter, angry. So full of this rage that I can’t seem to let go.
How can I be so lonely when I’m among so many friends?
Every instinct in me says ‘Go. Get away from this. It’s long past time for you to be different.’ I’ve never run from a fight in my life, but I fear staying so much. But to leave, without any kind of resolution…
I wish I was a less honest man. Then I would have better explanations. Reasons. Instead… instead I should tell the truth.
Hate fills me up again. Disgust. Rage. I wish it would show itself on my skin so people would see who I am. This curse needs to be seen, revealed. Then maybe I’ll be free of it.
Right. Like you’ll ever be free of this wanderlust. Like you’ll ever stop resenting anything tying you to one place. Like you’ll ever treat anyplace as home anymore. Like you have a home. Home is where the heart is.
What heart?
-Doug
I just want to be okay, be okay, be okay today” Ingrid Michaelson “Be okay”
Tuesday, July 27, 2010
Meghan: What?
I took one look at the inspirational posters and bright camp uniforms and ran the opposite direction.
Unfortunately I was immediately caught by the cheery counselors that guarded the perimeter.
“You’re going to have a good time!” they said happily as they dragged me back to the milling pod of trapped college students.
“We have to get out of here” I whispered as I was deposited back among the herd. My friends nodded unanimously.
“NO TALKING!” a loud voice boomed over our heads.
We looked for the source, perhaps there was some authority figure we could kill to escape this disaster.
“PAY NO ATTENTION TO THE MAN BEHIND THE CURTAIN!!” The voice continued, “YOU ARE HERE ON LOAN FROM YOUR COLLEGES TO HAVE FUN. AND FUN YOU WILL HAVE. NOW GO TO YOUR CABINS.”
I looked up from a map of the camp grounds at the pounding on our cabin door. Jasmine and Sarah waved at me to see who it was so I creaked it open. Nailed to it was a cloth bag dripping with what looked suspiciously like blood. I yanked it from the door and brought it inside. We gathered on one of the extra beds and I poured the bag’s contents out. It had three tiny dolls and many scraps of paper. I spun one of the bloody dolls on my palm, confused. It was a tiny figurine of the Disney princess Cinderella. Jasmine picked up a little princess Jasmine doll by her head and groaned. Sarah poked the Sleeping Beauty doll that remained then picked up a laminated card that had fallen from the bag. She read:
“Welcome campers! It’s your first day, so we thought we’d have a little scavenger hunt! Each of you has been assigned a figure and a puzzle. Unscramble the puzzle before everyone else and win a prize, lose the contest and there will be dire consequences. Have fun!”
I rolled my eyes, “Psychos.”
We started separating the words that came with the dolls into puzzles. Jasmine ended up with what looked like a kidnappers note in cut out newspaper letters. Sarah had well scripted directions, but mine was missing. I looked everywhere and finally found one sticky, blood stained word under the bed.
“Plant.”
“What?” Jasmine asked as she loaded shells into a rocket launcher.
“It just says plant. What does that mean?”
“No idea.” She clicked the last one in place, “See you later.”
“But—“ but she was gone.
I turned to Sarah, “Try a garden or something?” she suggested with a sad smile.
“Thanks.” I said as I left, wondering why she looked so sad.
After asking directions from many a counselor, I made my way to the camp director’s forbidden garden. The plastic happiness in their eyes seemed to wilt around the edges when they spoke of it, the last one I talked to practically begged me not to go. But with a stupid hint like ‘plant’ what else was I supposed to do? As the foliage grew denser and looked more gardeny, I dropped to an army crawl along the loamy earth. When I had crawled for what seemed like miles I reached a peak and looked over the hill down on a cabin surrounded by a small garden. The camp director plodded slowly down the rows of his garden, wearing old grimy clothes and a sun hat. He paid particular care to a row of new shoots close to the cabin. As he made his rotation around the house I sprinted down the hill as quietly as I could and pulled at one of the shoots. Up popped the strangest looking vegetable I’ve ever seen. Its head was bulbous and striped, tiny squinty eyes glared up at me in the sunlight, and its little limbs wiggled. I just stared at it, gaping. It stared right back for a second before its mouth cracked open. I knew either a bite or a scream was coming and I wrapped my arms around the thing’s head to keep it quiet. I heard the director coming and ran into the nearby forest. When I was clear I let the radish beast go, sitting cross-legged and watching it attempt to walk around me. It was very top-heavy and kept falling over, which was adorable, but I didn’t know what to do with it. Pretty soon it started chewing on my jeans and looking at me with pleading eyes; it was hungry. I popped it in the front of my jacket and went in search of radish food. After I had been walking for a while I came upon a lavender bush and the thing started squealing. I broke off some of the flowers and fed them to my radish baby. It squeed joyfully and started glowing. I frowned down at it in confusion, then fear as it started growing. And growing, and growing, and growing… It burst from my sweater in an explosion of fabric then stood before me as a full grown uber-radish. Its full throated roar shook the leaves of the jungle that surrounded us and I clapped my hands to my ears. Somewhere far away a camp director realized that one of his plants was missing. The uber-radish lowered its head and I climbed aboard, clinging to the leaves that topped its tuberous form.
“FOR PONY!!” I cried. And we rode off into the sunset to free my brethren from the tyranny of camp.
“So that’s it.” I concluded as I settled back further into the psychiatrist’s couch, “What does it mean?”
I looked over at her chair to find it empty.
“Mrs. Stevenson?”
“I’m over here dear,” she said as she held up a syringe to the light and flicked it with a fingernail to get the air bubbles to rise.
“Ah… What are you doing?”
I quickly sat up as she squirted a threatening stream of liquid from the syringe
“It’s a new medication I’d like to prescribe you, I think it would help.”
“With my dreams?”
She smiled at me, “With everything.”
Shit, I knew that smile. I stood up quickly and practically fell over the back of the couch in my hurry to put something between us.
“No, really, it’s okay, I don’t need any meds.”
Her heels clicked ominously on the tile, “I’m a doctor, and I think you do.”
She rounded the couch and I sprinted around the other side, slipping a little on the floor to slam into the door. I scrambled at the handle as she stalked toward me and was relieved to feel it give under my fingers.
I stumbled into the hall screaming, “Mango, mango, MANGO!!!”
I looked down the empty hall in horror, where were…?
I heard a nasty thwacking sound behind me and turned to find Doug standing over a fallen Mrs.Stevenson, holding a baseball bat. Jasmine knelt down to check her pulse.
“No go?” Doug asked me sympathetically. I shook my head, breathing hard from the adrenaline.
“Can we please change the stupid safe word?”
“No.” Jasmine said, “It entertains me.”
I groaned, “Now what?”
Doug consulted a notebook covered with scribbles, “There’s a neurologist in Thailand who’s supposed to be…medically flexible?”
“To Thailand?”
“Thailand!”
-M
Unfortunately I was immediately caught by the cheery counselors that guarded the perimeter.
“You’re going to have a good time!” they said happily as they dragged me back to the milling pod of trapped college students.
“We have to get out of here” I whispered as I was deposited back among the herd. My friends nodded unanimously.
“NO TALKING!” a loud voice boomed over our heads.
We looked for the source, perhaps there was some authority figure we could kill to escape this disaster.
“PAY NO ATTENTION TO THE MAN BEHIND THE CURTAIN!!” The voice continued, “YOU ARE HERE ON LOAN FROM YOUR COLLEGES TO HAVE FUN. AND FUN YOU WILL HAVE. NOW GO TO YOUR CABINS.”
I looked up from a map of the camp grounds at the pounding on our cabin door. Jasmine and Sarah waved at me to see who it was so I creaked it open. Nailed to it was a cloth bag dripping with what looked suspiciously like blood. I yanked it from the door and brought it inside. We gathered on one of the extra beds and I poured the bag’s contents out. It had three tiny dolls and many scraps of paper. I spun one of the bloody dolls on my palm, confused. It was a tiny figurine of the Disney princess Cinderella. Jasmine picked up a little princess Jasmine doll by her head and groaned. Sarah poked the Sleeping Beauty doll that remained then picked up a laminated card that had fallen from the bag. She read:
“Welcome campers! It’s your first day, so we thought we’d have a little scavenger hunt! Each of you has been assigned a figure and a puzzle. Unscramble the puzzle before everyone else and win a prize, lose the contest and there will be dire consequences. Have fun!”
I rolled my eyes, “Psychos.”
We started separating the words that came with the dolls into puzzles. Jasmine ended up with what looked like a kidnappers note in cut out newspaper letters. Sarah had well scripted directions, but mine was missing. I looked everywhere and finally found one sticky, blood stained word under the bed.
“Plant.”
“What?” Jasmine asked as she loaded shells into a rocket launcher.
“It just says plant. What does that mean?”
“No idea.” She clicked the last one in place, “See you later.”
“But—“ but she was gone.
I turned to Sarah, “Try a garden or something?” she suggested with a sad smile.
“Thanks.” I said as I left, wondering why she looked so sad.
After asking directions from many a counselor, I made my way to the camp director’s forbidden garden. The plastic happiness in their eyes seemed to wilt around the edges when they spoke of it, the last one I talked to practically begged me not to go. But with a stupid hint like ‘plant’ what else was I supposed to do? As the foliage grew denser and looked more gardeny, I dropped to an army crawl along the loamy earth. When I had crawled for what seemed like miles I reached a peak and looked over the hill down on a cabin surrounded by a small garden. The camp director plodded slowly down the rows of his garden, wearing old grimy clothes and a sun hat. He paid particular care to a row of new shoots close to the cabin. As he made his rotation around the house I sprinted down the hill as quietly as I could and pulled at one of the shoots. Up popped the strangest looking vegetable I’ve ever seen. Its head was bulbous and striped, tiny squinty eyes glared up at me in the sunlight, and its little limbs wiggled. I just stared at it, gaping. It stared right back for a second before its mouth cracked open. I knew either a bite or a scream was coming and I wrapped my arms around the thing’s head to keep it quiet. I heard the director coming and ran into the nearby forest. When I was clear I let the radish beast go, sitting cross-legged and watching it attempt to walk around me. It was very top-heavy and kept falling over, which was adorable, but I didn’t know what to do with it. Pretty soon it started chewing on my jeans and looking at me with pleading eyes; it was hungry. I popped it in the front of my jacket and went in search of radish food. After I had been walking for a while I came upon a lavender bush and the thing started squealing. I broke off some of the flowers and fed them to my radish baby. It squeed joyfully and started glowing. I frowned down at it in confusion, then fear as it started growing. And growing, and growing, and growing… It burst from my sweater in an explosion of fabric then stood before me as a full grown uber-radish. Its full throated roar shook the leaves of the jungle that surrounded us and I clapped my hands to my ears. Somewhere far away a camp director realized that one of his plants was missing. The uber-radish lowered its head and I climbed aboard, clinging to the leaves that topped its tuberous form.
“FOR PONY!!” I cried. And we rode off into the sunset to free my brethren from the tyranny of camp.
“So that’s it.” I concluded as I settled back further into the psychiatrist’s couch, “What does it mean?”
I looked over at her chair to find it empty.
“Mrs. Stevenson?”
“I’m over here dear,” she said as she held up a syringe to the light and flicked it with a fingernail to get the air bubbles to rise.
“Ah… What are you doing?”
I quickly sat up as she squirted a threatening stream of liquid from the syringe
“It’s a new medication I’d like to prescribe you, I think it would help.”
“With my dreams?”
She smiled at me, “With everything.”
Shit, I knew that smile. I stood up quickly and practically fell over the back of the couch in my hurry to put something between us.
“No, really, it’s okay, I don’t need any meds.”
Her heels clicked ominously on the tile, “I’m a doctor, and I think you do.”
She rounded the couch and I sprinted around the other side, slipping a little on the floor to slam into the door. I scrambled at the handle as she stalked toward me and was relieved to feel it give under my fingers.
I stumbled into the hall screaming, “Mango, mango, MANGO!!!”
I looked down the empty hall in horror, where were…?
I heard a nasty thwacking sound behind me and turned to find Doug standing over a fallen Mrs.Stevenson, holding a baseball bat. Jasmine knelt down to check her pulse.
“No go?” Doug asked me sympathetically. I shook my head, breathing hard from the adrenaline.
“Can we please change the stupid safe word?”
“No.” Jasmine said, “It entertains me.”
I groaned, “Now what?”
Doug consulted a notebook covered with scribbles, “There’s a neurologist in Thailand who’s supposed to be…medically flexible?”
“To Thailand?”
“Thailand!”
-M
Tuesday, July 20, 2010
Jasmine: I'm not sick
“I’m not sick!” I protested trying unsuccessfully to hold back a hacking cough. That had just started today. Before it was just a runny nose that no allergy medication could touch.
“Yes you are. Did you make a doctor’s appointment?” Doug was steering me towards something that looked suspiciously like my bed. When did we leave Starbucks?
“Doctor’s appointment!” I sputtered wiping a trail of mucus on the back of my hand, “but it’s only a cold a doctor couldn’t do anything for that. Virus. Wait it out.” I was lying in bed. At least the lost time was getting shorter.
“Not for that, for your asthma.”
“I don’t have asthma.” I narrowed my eyes at him from flat on my back. Unfortunately this led to my eyes closing.
“Right, I’ll let a doctor decide.”
“mrrrr” My eyes wouldn’t open, there was something I needed to resist wasn’t there?
“Go to sleep”
“mrrrr”
“Goodnight Jasmine.”
“Goodnight”
"Living is a sickness to which sleep provides relief every sixteen hours. It's a palliative. The remedy is death."
Nicolas de Chamfort
“Yes you are. Did you make a doctor’s appointment?” Doug was steering me towards something that looked suspiciously like my bed. When did we leave Starbucks?
“Doctor’s appointment!” I sputtered wiping a trail of mucus on the back of my hand, “but it’s only a cold a doctor couldn’t do anything for that. Virus. Wait it out.” I was lying in bed. At least the lost time was getting shorter.
“Not for that, for your asthma.”
“I don’t have asthma.” I narrowed my eyes at him from flat on my back. Unfortunately this led to my eyes closing.
“Right, I’ll let a doctor decide.”
“mrrrr” My eyes wouldn’t open, there was something I needed to resist wasn’t there?
“Go to sleep”
“mrrrr”
“Goodnight Jasmine.”
“Goodnight”
"Living is a sickness to which sleep provides relief every sixteen hours. It's a palliative. The remedy is death."
Nicolas de Chamfort
Monday, July 19, 2010
Read and Consider
This is the monthly newsletter from my favorite tea store. Please consider helping keep it alive.
Thanks,
Sarah
________________________________________________________
New Mexico Tea Company has been open four years this November. Every summer is a challenge for a tea store in the desert, but this summer the economy and hot weather have finally caught up with us. As many of you have experienced, we are out of stock on half of our teas and products; there is simply no money to reorder more. This is a dangerous position to be in for a retail store. As we have less to sell, our revenue goes down, leaving less money to buy new things, which in turn results in even fewer sales. We need to break the cycle.
Background:
Normally we are able to save during the winter months (our busiest season) so that we have funds to carry us through the summer. However this past year we were operating the Tea Bar at a loss, and therefore now find ourselves up against a wall. Our day-to-day revenue is enough to pay all the bills, but not enough to order more tea. We are about to run out of tea, and if this happens the store will close. We need $5,000 to pay off our vendors and order more tea.
Whatever happens I will run the Tea Store until PNM turns off the electricity and the landlords kick us out for non-payment. But I hope that it does not come to that. I have conceived of a plan to get us through the next two months (our slowest time), and I need your help.
The Plan:
I believe in the power of micro-lending. I talked about it in a previous newsletter and encouraged everyone to use a site called Kiva to lend money to small businesses in third world countries. Now I am asking you to micro-lend money to New Mexico Tea Company. For the next week we are selling gift-cards that can be redeemed starting in December. If you buy a $50 gift card, it will be worth $55. A $100 gift card will be worth $115. We are using PayPal so that if we do not get enough investment to stay open this summer, we can issue a full refund to you. Once purchased I will e-mail you the gift certificate to print out.
I also want to give some of our customers the opportunity to lend a larger amount of money as a pure cash investment. You can lend $500 or $1000 for a 10% return paid back in six payments from December to May. Again, if we don't make it through the summer, then you would get a refund for the full amount of the loan.
Finally, we are starting an exclusive Tea Club. It will cost $10 per month to be a member. Membership entitles you to receive two ounces of a special tea we do not sell in the store every month. You will also have access to our VIP room upstairs (starting in August) which will be stocked with our most interesting teas and tea gadgets. Membership will allow you to make yourself a cup of tea and use our Wi-fi, chat with other tea drinkers, or read a book in the serene comfort of the tea store.
Conclusion:
Last month I was able to go to China because 16 people bought our China Tea Package before I left. Without their kind investment I would not have been able to make the trip. We are now in a real pickle; however, I will be able to keep supplying the best tea to Albuquerque with the help of similar investments. I am hoping you have enough faith in me and the store to invest your money with us.
Thank you,
David Edwards
President - NM Tea Co. Inc.
Office: 505-962-2137 Cell: 505-730-6501
1131 Mountain Rd. NW STE 2
Albuquerque, NM 87102
Thanks,
Sarah
________________________________________________________
New Mexico Tea Company has been open four years this November. Every summer is a challenge for a tea store in the desert, but this summer the economy and hot weather have finally caught up with us. As many of you have experienced, we are out of stock on half of our teas and products; there is simply no money to reorder more. This is a dangerous position to be in for a retail store. As we have less to sell, our revenue goes down, leaving less money to buy new things, which in turn results in even fewer sales. We need to break the cycle.
Background:
Normally we are able to save during the winter months (our busiest season) so that we have funds to carry us through the summer. However this past year we were operating the Tea Bar at a loss, and therefore now find ourselves up against a wall. Our day-to-day revenue is enough to pay all the bills, but not enough to order more tea. We are about to run out of tea, and if this happens the store will close. We need $5,000 to pay off our vendors and order more tea.
Whatever happens I will run the Tea Store until PNM turns off the electricity and the landlords kick us out for non-payment. But I hope that it does not come to that. I have conceived of a plan to get us through the next two months (our slowest time), and I need your help.
The Plan:
I believe in the power of micro-lending. I talked about it in a previous newsletter and encouraged everyone to use a site called Kiva to lend money to small businesses in third world countries. Now I am asking you to micro-lend money to New Mexico Tea Company. For the next week we are selling gift-cards that can be redeemed starting in December. If you buy a $50 gift card, it will be worth $55. A $100 gift card will be worth $115. We are using PayPal so that if we do not get enough investment to stay open this summer, we can issue a full refund to you. Once purchased I will e-mail you the gift certificate to print out.
I also want to give some of our customers the opportunity to lend a larger amount of money as a pure cash investment. You can lend $500 or $1000 for a 10% return paid back in six payments from December to May. Again, if we don't make it through the summer, then you would get a refund for the full amount of the loan.
Finally, we are starting an exclusive Tea Club. It will cost $10 per month to be a member. Membership entitles you to receive two ounces of a special tea we do not sell in the store every month. You will also have access to our VIP room upstairs (starting in August) which will be stocked with our most interesting teas and tea gadgets. Membership will allow you to make yourself a cup of tea and use our Wi-fi, chat with other tea drinkers, or read a book in the serene comfort of the tea store.
Conclusion:
Last month I was able to go to China because 16 people bought our China Tea Package before I left. Without their kind investment I would not have been able to make the trip. We are now in a real pickle; however, I will be able to keep supplying the best tea to Albuquerque with the help of similar investments. I am hoping you have enough faith in me and the store to invest your money with us.
Thank you,
David Edwards
President - NM Tea Co. Inc.
Office: 505-962-2137 Cell: 505-730-6501
1131 Mountain Rd. NW STE 2
Albuquerque, NM 87102
Sunday, July 11, 2010
Doug: The Fight
“Let’s go.”
I’d be willing to bet anything he’s not expecting the straight punch to the face that snaps his head back like a whip. Two years ago he would have broken my wrist before I could get five inches from his nose. Now blood erupts forth like a fountain, splattering all over the mat.
I’m on him in a flash, knowing that the second he recovers and realizes he’s fighting for his life will be the second my fate will be sealed. Punch after punch rails down on his head and face. I feel a knucklebone crack but keep up my blows.
He reels. Hands come up and bat weakly at my arms. A vicious kick to his gut reminds him to cover his solar plexus. I cannot believe this is happening. This man used to be a god. He could fight like no other. I once watched him take down six armed assailants with just his hands. Now I, the untrained pup, beat him like a child.
He collapses to the ground. Rage fills me. “GET UP! WEAKLING! I COULDN’T HAVE LAID A HAND ON YOU A FEW YEARS AGO!” I want to punch him again and again until my knuckles show bone.
Blood and spit cover his face, making a mask of red. I can see the shame burning behind his eyes. He knows. Knows that he’s been beaten by someone weaker than him.
Bitter, disgusted, I drop my hands from their defensive guard. “You’ve forgotten who you are; shamed yourself. And me.” I can’t even look at him anymore.
That’s why the leg sweep surprised me. In a flash I’m on my back and he is pummeling me. I can see the feral glint in his eye, the killer instinct that has returned in his moment of shame. I fight back, but he’s running on something base now, an energy that I’ve never been able to harness, my blows are unfelt.
I have no chance. In minutes I am beaten to a bloody pulp. Two black eyes, I’m sure a few of my ribs are cracked, and my nose is pouring blood like a faucet. I struggle to stand, and stare blearily at the hand that is proffered, not realizing what it is for a full second. “Good fight.” He mumbles from between cut and swollen lips.
“You fucking kicked my ass.” I mutter. We’re leaning against each other for support, staggering towards the crowd that has gathered to watch our bloody mat room spectacle. Some blonde bimbo with a fake tan asks why we were fighting.
The man at my side laughs, I can feel it hurt him. “I forgot who I was for a little while. My brother had to remind me.”
I grin and that hurts too, but it feels right, and that’s all that matters.
-Doug
"There are many here among us that feel that life is but a joke."
Bob Dylan "All Along the Watchtower"
I’d be willing to bet anything he’s not expecting the straight punch to the face that snaps his head back like a whip. Two years ago he would have broken my wrist before I could get five inches from his nose. Now blood erupts forth like a fountain, splattering all over the mat.
I’m on him in a flash, knowing that the second he recovers and realizes he’s fighting for his life will be the second my fate will be sealed. Punch after punch rails down on his head and face. I feel a knucklebone crack but keep up my blows.
He reels. Hands come up and bat weakly at my arms. A vicious kick to his gut reminds him to cover his solar plexus. I cannot believe this is happening. This man used to be a god. He could fight like no other. I once watched him take down six armed assailants with just his hands. Now I, the untrained pup, beat him like a child.
He collapses to the ground. Rage fills me. “GET UP! WEAKLING! I COULDN’T HAVE LAID A HAND ON YOU A FEW YEARS AGO!” I want to punch him again and again until my knuckles show bone.
Blood and spit cover his face, making a mask of red. I can see the shame burning behind his eyes. He knows. Knows that he’s been beaten by someone weaker than him.
Bitter, disgusted, I drop my hands from their defensive guard. “You’ve forgotten who you are; shamed yourself. And me.” I can’t even look at him anymore.
That’s why the leg sweep surprised me. In a flash I’m on my back and he is pummeling me. I can see the feral glint in his eye, the killer instinct that has returned in his moment of shame. I fight back, but he’s running on something base now, an energy that I’ve never been able to harness, my blows are unfelt.
I have no chance. In minutes I am beaten to a bloody pulp. Two black eyes, I’m sure a few of my ribs are cracked, and my nose is pouring blood like a faucet. I struggle to stand, and stare blearily at the hand that is proffered, not realizing what it is for a full second. “Good fight.” He mumbles from between cut and swollen lips.
“You fucking kicked my ass.” I mutter. We’re leaning against each other for support, staggering towards the crowd that has gathered to watch our bloody mat room spectacle. Some blonde bimbo with a fake tan asks why we were fighting.
The man at my side laughs, I can feel it hurt him. “I forgot who I was for a little while. My brother had to remind me.”
I grin and that hurts too, but it feels right, and that’s all that matters.
-Doug
"There are many here among us that feel that life is but a joke."
Bob Dylan "All Along the Watchtower"
Sunday, July 4, 2010
Sarah: Question
Readers, whom I often offend with what seems to be closed mindedness, you get to decide - should I revamp the site to look more like a modern blog? And if so, should I keep using the infamous lake photo from where the five of us used to camp?
I would love to hear your ideas. Thanks!
~Sarah, the html and blogger-site manager for the Fear Five
I would love to hear your ideas. Thanks!
~Sarah, the html and blogger-site manager for the Fear Five
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