#10 - The Game

Today's words: Sufferer, Midday, Gentleman, Animal 

Word Count: 480

Summary: A young man has his life disrupted forever due to something that happened when he was a kid.

Trigger warning: hints of abuse

 Every Saturday at midday, Michael dies.

Holding onto the closest available object, he clutches it in desperation until his knuckles turn paper-white. His whole body feels like it’s rejecting his soul, like someone’s trying to exorcise something evil out of him. Eventually he collapses into a trembling heap on the floor, struggling to collect as much oxygen as he can whilst his brain repeats for what feels like hours that he’s going to be okay.

Saturday afternoons with his dad would be something to look forward to every week. He’d prepare his clothes, comic books, and homework days in advance, alerting his friends at school whenever it was nearly the weekend. With his elbows on the windowsill overlooking the front garden, he’d press his forehead against the cold glass and wait until he could see the white registration plate that had his initials at the end (if you changed the ‘5’ for an ‘S’), and the friendly one, two, and three flash of the headlights. Scrambling from the window, he’d grab his backpack, kiss his mother, and run out of the door like an over-enthusiastic puppy, scared that its owner had left forever.

One Saturday, Michael’s dad invented a game.

“Are you ready, Mikey?”

“What do I have to do, again?”

“When you see the all of the hands of the clock move to twelve, you have to close your eyes. Then, I have to try and make you open them. If I can make you open your eyes in five minutes or less, I win; if not, you win, and I’ll give you a bag of sweets.”

“Butter fudge from Thornton’s??”

“The very same.”

“What if I lose?”

“If you lose...I have to dare you to do something, and you can’t say no.”

“Like what? Something scary...?”

“All you have to do is win, Mikey.”

The first time that Michael played the game, he lost after a few seconds.

“Hey! No fair – you know I’m really ticklish, dad!”

“Haha okay, I’ll try something different.”

A person is most vulnerable in two situations: when they can’t see, and when they’re naked.

“Dad, this feels weird.”

“You want this fudge, right?”

“Well, yeah, but--”

“Then keep your eyes closed.”

“Dad, this is starting to hurt, can we stop?”

“We’ve still got two minutes left. You want to win the game, don’t you?”

“Daddy...”

Every Saturday at midday, Michael’s dad shrugged off his regular skin; like a werewolf at the sight of a full moon, he turned into an animal.

And he used to be such a nice gentleman...

--

Michael’s nearly thirty now; he has a job that he loves, a steady girlfriend, and a cosy house in California that he paid for with his own money.

Michael is also a long-term sufferer of weekly panic attacks that tend to last for five minutes or less. He can’t remember why.