Nobody Got Hurt

My uncle picks me up and throws my weightless body towards the edge, I wake for one moment to see the deep darkness of the abyss I will soon call my home.

            It was a great day, not too hot nor cold, and I woke up to a morning start of my grandma’s famous breakfast meal. It was her own recipe, which made it even more special, but I love the taste. The golden hash browns that lied next to the fresh made bacon and eggs with a whole other plate of my grandmother’s very own peanut-butter and jelly filled pancakes. The tall glass of pure chocolate milk stood over the morning meal like Goliath in front of David. I get into my chair at the table; I say my chair because me and my uncles all had our own seats and if someone sat in the others seat then that is when grandpa had to come in and I will warn you, never and I mean never ever get my grandpa mad or that will be the last time anyone ever saw you. Then as usual my four uncles came rushing in like a herd of pissed off bulls, I knew it was time to get out of the way or “I’d be next.”

After we all finished eating we all get ready for our favorite Saturday game; but to tell the truth I never liked that game but today I felt lucky. We called the game “Warrior.” We would all go through the obstacles in between the house and the battle grounds. The first obstacle was the cornfield, then the green forest, and then the long hike up the 200 foot mound, and after the finalists are chosen then it is another 200 feet up another mound which we named “Warriors Mountain.” The game goes like this, you choose a fighting style and stick with it you could not change your style, then there were two battle mounds which meant two ongoing battles, and the rest explains itself. The previous first and second place winners would fight first; after that it would be the luck of the draw to tell which two of the other three would fight next. Well let’s just say it is a sort of miniature fighting tournament.

It was time to do the cornfield challenge, you would find your way through the cornfield until you reached a pathway, and then you would follow that pathway to a buried spot where a random weapon was put. There were five of us, so there were five pathways, which meant there were five weapons. There were three airsoft type weapons, a BB gun, and a disc launcher. The disc launcher was my creation, it was basically a Nerf disc launcher but it had miniature CD discs that weren’t plastic or rubber, they were metal and thick so it hurt. I saw my uncles take off but I was not stupid, I would not waste my energy on the beginning, I needed it for the end because all four of my uncles were both bigger and stronger than I was. The four uncles were Jeremiah, who was the oldest and the strongest, though he looked mean he could not be any nicer than a choir boy. The youngest was Jason, he was the weakest of the four uncles but he could fight, and he had experience too so you wouldn’t want to mess with him, nowadays he is a US Marshall in the National Guard. Then the two uncles in the middle were twins, uncle George and uncle Robert, though most twins get along real well but these two got along like a great white gets along with a killer whale. But when one got hurt the other would do anything for him. My uncles liked to pick on me but when my grandpa and grandma were around they couldn’t touch me. But I sort of picked on them also, though I was the smallest and the youngest I have broken a few of my uncles bones so they sometime can fear me. But today it is all fair play though it may get ugly “nobody gets hurt……maybe.”

I find my way to the cornfield and find my pathway, I follow it and I shout past the heavens, “I knew I was lucky today, whoooo!”

“What the f*** was that?” Said Jeremiah.

“Well, dumb ass Corey obviously found the launcher, even George knew that.” Responded Jason in a humorous voice.

Then I took the war to the fire front, the forest that concluded about half the 50 acres in my grandmother’s backyard. I took all ten of my shots within the first 5 acres of the forest. And again I got lucky, I hit Jeremiah straight in the jewels, Jason got hit in between his rib cage, and the twins well lets just say they had to pull a few pieces of metal out of their legs, and that eased my competition but the jig was up and the battles were about to begin.

To get to the battlegrounds, as I said before, we had to climb 200 feet up and the two who would battle would be Jeremiah and Jason and whoever won, that person was my opponent in the final battle at the peak of “Warrior’s Mountain.” I liked the final battle best because the only way to win was to knock your opponent off the top to a 400 foot drop to the bottom of the waterfall which was a 50 foot deep oasis. You couldn’t knock your opponent out because if you did you would have to dive in after him so he would not drown while he was unconscious. The fight began between the oldest and the youngest of my uncles. Jeremiah took the first swing, it was a wide swing, but he missed and Jason followed up his dodge with a strong uppercut. Jeremiah spit blood as his head was forced back by the impact of the full swing Jason gave him. Then Jason went for the arm of Jeremiah hoping to get Jeremiah to quit via submission or breaking Jeremiah’s arm. Jason knew Jeremiah couldn’t afford to have that right arm broken again so Jeremiah would have to quit. As that all went through my mind I focused on Jason’s movement to protect me from that move so I wouldn’t quit. As Jason went for the lock hold Jeremiah grabbed his arm and put Jason in his own lock. Jason wouldn’t quit so in a clean swift movement Jeremiah, holding on to Jason’s arm, pulled quickly back and the only thing I heard was the snap of Jason’s arm as it bent backwards. Jason’s cry of pain went straight through me I could only think about what would happen to me if I was put into that hold.

Jeremiah said, “It’s your turn to lose little bro.”

“I am ready!” I shouted, I have gotten lucky so far, what could go wrong.

Then as the battle started Jason grabbed me with his good arm and said to watch out for his left hand, it is his power arm. As I turned around to fight I turned around straight into a left hook to the cheek; but that only pissed me off. I stood back up and the only thing I could hear was Jason in the background saying, “Uh oh, Corey’s gonna to go off. Hey George, Robbert get over here this is going to be a good fight. I got up and gave a huge right swing to Jeremiah’s ribs, over and over again I hit him with quick swings to the ribs, then I took a step back because Jeremiah was at the edge of the falls, I knew this was a good chance to hit him off of it since I couldn't lift him. I went for a jump kick and Jeremiah grabbed my leg threw me down, hit me in the face with a hard left, I wasn’t knocked out but I could not feel my body and I had a really bad headache; and if that wasn’t enough my uncle then picked me up and started swinging me back and forth. And after the third revolution around Jeremiah throws my weightless body towards the edge, I wake for one moment to see the deep darkness of the abyss I will soon call my home. As I fall, motionless in pain I see a dark figure falling towards me, it was pretty far off since I have already fallen about 100 feet, at that time I estimated I may not have even fallen 25 feet but it felt like I was falling forever. Then I turn around and look to see where I would land and at that moment I could see the water. I knew how much it would hurt if I fell with my body spread like a star so I curled up, I don’t know how since I couldn’t feel my body but I did, I thought it was the fright of the pain I would take if I hit the water in the same way I had been thrown off the edge. I was afraid.

I hit the water and my wounds seemed to heal, the headache was gone, and the numbness I felt had left me, like a demon leaves a person, I felt free. Though my cheek still hurt I felt really good. But then I remember the dark figure I saw falling with me. I look up and see the figure. I heard something I couldn’t make it out because it was distant but I knew I heard something. It got louder and louder and louder as the figure got closer. Then I knew what it was.

“Wahoooooo!” Uncle Jeremiah came in after me. I asked him why he came in and he said he didn’t, he said that he threw me off the edge and Jason came up and pushed him. I knew it was because Jason was pissed off that Jeremiah broke his arm, but he was the one who decided not to give up. We all left and Jeremiah and I walked together and when we came in we soaked the wooden floors of my grandmother’s house. We all laughed waiting to see how pissed my grandfather got, and then we remembered that when he gets pissed the heaven that we felt we were in would then become the fiery pit of hell that every human being is afraid of. So we got as many towels as we could and we cleaned it up, then we put the soaking towels on the rope outside to dry, then we waited because tonight was a good night. Tonight I had won. And to tell the truth, nobody got hurt.