A Kiss Is A Promise

The first gunman didn't let me finish. Before I realized, he'd kicked my feet off the ground from under me and I fell to the floor on my face. Then cutlass caning followed. He hit me thrice with the flat of the knife. It was the worst pain I ever experienced in my life. It took your breath away and that part of your brain that manages pain (ask an anatomist) jars out of its homeostatic spring, like the calibrating needle of a weight scale stepped on by a Japanese sumo wrestler. It'll never returns to zero point afterwards. Don't bother holding your breathe because there is no adapting to this kind of pain.

"You think this is a joke?" Blow. I moaned. "You think you're funny?" She does, but I couldn't tell them that. I was busy with... Blow... Bracing for the third one didn't help lessen the pain. I realized I'd shouted a second later. The fourth one would have come, I reckoned, but Diane's 'boyfriend' stopped him.

"Enough!" He squatted beside me next.

"I know your sister is inside... Maybe, I'd run into her too, say at the supermarket, or in school, or..." he shrugged and patted my head. They left over the fence.

I sat up in a daze. My back was throbbing. Less than an hour ago, I thought I'd had a gotten back in my

game at the end of my first date in a long while. My awesome day wasn't even over, other aspects that came with the game I'd left behind were beginning to catch up with me. What was the ideal response? I looked up in the direction of the front porch when I heard approaching footsteps. It was Clara. She had heard. She had also witnessed my humiliation. What could be worse?

...to be continued.

(c) 2015. All rights reserved.