This story, well now stories, started off as a standalone short, meant to be a one off tale that sparked unexpected interest. Got a few comments and request about wanting more, and so here we are! "Series" with feature recurring characters, themes, and an expanding world that continues to unfold, one story at a time.
January 17, 2024
It... Damn.
Sorry....Ffs I'm apologizing in writing to paper.
I must really be messed up...
OK focus... It's still a lot to process. Feelings suck sometimes.
OK... So, I remember it was bad. Even now weeks later, I can still feel the phantom pains of it all. My stomach still jerks and pulsates when I'm still. My therapist said writing it down might help.
I think it's bullshit, they could never really understand all this, but when your shit insurance is finally paying for something, I guess you gotta do.
So here goes...
It was raining hard, I can see and remember that clearly. It was the kind of bullshit rain that soaked you down to the bone, and made every breath feel like steam off a dying fire. It was like I was in some dark YouTube video or found footage horror movie. What I don't know... Is how it started. Maybe it was something I said? He said? Maybe the other guy was just looking for someone to bleed? Maybe we both had to much to drink and did something really stupid?
I really don't know...
Maybe that's why I can't let this go. Not knowing does things to the mind. Maybe I'm not realizing something yet? Anyways, all I do remember is I blinked, and I was outside in the alley, some dirty back alley behind the bar, and this guy was standing in front of me with his fists clenched tight like iron.
He didn’t speak, just paced angerly. The rain made his skin shine, his shirt tight, muscles twitching like they were on a hair trigger. He was same age as me and about the same build. Average, maybe, but every inch of him said he was about to make me feel everything bad in the world. He wanted to make me hurt.
Then he moved. Gods he was fast.
The first punch caught me right in the center of my gut, just above the navel. A sharp, sudden thump, like a sledgehammer against wet canvas. I jolted back, flung like a child's boxing blow up bag. The air exploded from my lungs as a second punch soon followed, still center of my stomach but a little to the left. It felt like I’d been stabbed with a dull spear, pain not just in the flesh, but inside, where organs screamed and coiled like snakes. It came maybe three times more? I wanted to throw up.
OK so, if you are reading this, you need to realize, I'm probably the most normal boring not much of a man, man you ever met. I get up, I work, I goto bed. The most extreme and daring thing I ever did was playing Pokémon Go at 3am... In a gated community. So, I was in no way prepared for a fight or a punch.
So yeah, I stumbled back, hunched, arms instinctively wrapping around my stomach like I could hold the pain in. Protect myself and suddenly make it stop. But I couldn’t. It poured out of me in a wheezing cough. And before I knew it? He was already on me again. Throwing my arms to the side.
WHAM!
Yet another gut shot, lower this time. His fist buried into my belly button like he was trying to break through to my spine. My knees buckled. My mouth opened, but nothing came out. No scream. No breath. Just a hot gurgle of nausea. Then a other change. I felt my body shift, lift up like it was floating, become so feather like due to a rising punch.
A uppercut?
Yeah, yeah that's what it was. The man uppercuted (is that a word?) me so hard, my feet literally left the ground! My stomach wrenched, twisted, caved it like a bowling ball dropped on a pillow. It didn't stop either, this uppercutting came again and again. He shifted and moved, angle his body and fists like there was a target painted on my belly.
His left arm. Wide swing.
Right arm. Twisted his whole body with it
A left right, straight into my stomach.
It's amazing what you can see and remember clearly when you're getting beaten up....
So yeah, I fell forward into him, wheezing and twitching like a broken toy. Which what I probably was to him. I felt my shirt being lifted off, but why? What was the point of removing a shirt in a fight? He did the same for himself too. Was this a typical man thing in a fight? Or did this guy have some weird '80s actions movie fetish?
I didn't have time to think about this, because the beating contuined.
He said something as his fist collided just under my ribs. Both arms slamming my upper belly like he was tenderizing a steak. The quote I am a meat popsicle, came to mind. Another blow, another expression of this man's discontent with me. His fist twisted and dug into my gut like a drill. I couldn't scream again, couldn't cry out for help, I just folded like wet paper under even the slightest force.
My stomach wanted to violently and rapidly rush to the outside of my body, and onto the ground. Instead, with the world swirling, I fell into the man, he stunk of beer and testosterone. I don't know why, but I expected him to hold me up. No, that was stupid of me, he instead shoved me back, back into the wall. I collided with a hard thud and felt my world spin again. I think I hit my head! Even worse I didn't even have a chance to move my body or even react before the man stepped in and threw a brutal right (it was a huge swing too, like he was swinging a batt) to my flabby-ish side.
To much McDonald's ok? Shut up.
The abused didn't stop as this man took sadistic like pleasure in punching my sides. My head dropped, I wanted to die. I saw my body for the first time, covered in sweat, rain and... So many bruises. My Gods so many bruises! Some red, some deeper shades of such mixed with blue and purple. I watched then as a fist came straight at the center of my bruised gut, entered deep and didn't leave. I found my voice, finally, and let out such a deep weak moan of pain the man actually stopped. I must have seem so weak, so small, so unmanly... Well unmanly-er after that.
Then he laughed, really hard. Like he couldn't believe someone could be this pathetic, yet here I was. Even with this joy on his lips, he stepped forward, and threw another hard punch to my gut. Like all the others it connected with violent contempt. He smiled. The man was clearly obsessed with my stomach for some reason.
Thump... Came the sound of another hit. Another hit? Or maybe it was just the sound I made. Heard? Idk really... It was a thick, ugly grunt as pain radiated out like a Shockwave. Like someone literally dropped a bomb on my stomach. My legs didn’t even resist, or tried to work, they just dropped.
I was on my knees now, the rain hammering my back, my stomach convulsing with every breath. I tried to crawl, I tried to get away. I didn't care how I looked, I just had to get away. One hand reached forward, if I could just do it one movement at a time.... Maybe I could finally make this end!
That’s when I felt his fingers tangle in my hair.
The man was still laughing, still amused at my violent and painful predicament. He yanked my head up, not to look at him, not to behold the man who did this, but to open up my body. He didn’t say a damn thing.
THUD.
A straight punch slammed into my gut while I was defenseless. Not that I had much to begin with really. But yeah.... I gagged, loud and raw. My mouth spilled spit and nothing else. My stomach fluttered. My whole body spasmed like it didn’t know what to do with itself anymore.
Then another came, harder, more direct, somehow more refined.
WHUMP.
Right into the same spot. And this one stayed. He left his fist there for half a second, buried in my belly like he was making sure I’d never forget it. I heard myself wheezing, heard the panic in my own voice as I tried to breathe, but my lungs weren’t cooperating. Everything was fire. Wet, heavy fire.
I collapsed fully now. Hands and knees in the ground. My body rocked and convulsed with each breath. My gut was no longer just a body part, no longer the home of yummie foods, it was a crater, a ravaged battlefield, and every nerve was screaming for mercy.
The man crouched beside me. Rain trickled off his shoulders, dripped from his nose. He looked at me like I was something broken on the sidewalk. He didn’t speak, but I saw it in his eyes:
“You’re not done yet.”
He grabbed my arm. Hauled me up to my knees again. My stomach was defenseless, slack, a twitching mess of bruised 'muscle', fat, and swelling pain.
Then he launched the final barrage.
BAM. BAM. BAM.
Three quick, brutal punches. Straight into my belly. Each one deeper than the last. I swore I felt something shift inside, like my body was giving up. No not giving up, being systematically and methodically rearranged. I doubled over, this time unable to keep from vomiting onto the ground, strings of it hanging from my lips as I gasped through the aftermath.
Then came the last punch.
I was straightened up, still on my knees like I was paying homage. The man reared back just a bit, not too much but enough, and drove his fist deep into the center of my belly. Not fast. Not flashy. Just deep. He meant for me to feel every inch of it.
And I did.
It was the one that ended me.
I collapsed face first into the ground. Or was that the asphalt now mixed with my own vomit and rain? My arms wouldn’t move. My stomach felt like it was... I still don't even know if words would do it justice. I could hear the rain, feel it mixing with the blood in my mouth, but everything else was distant. Everything so far away, like I was underwater, or sinking through the earth.
He didn’t kick me. He didn’t spit on me. He just stood there. He smiled, said something, then he walked away.
And I stayed there in the alley, bare skin caked with bruises and sweat, cradling my broken belly, and realizing that for the first time in my life, I couldn’t even scream... And maybe I didn't want to?
So there you have it, what happened to me on that day. I may be missing some parts, but you get the idea right? And you know what's crazy? I think my therapist was right. Now that I wrote it down, really thought about it... I know why I can't let it go, or at least couldn't before.
Deep down....
I enjoyed all of it...and I want it again.
Socials/Tip Jar: linktr.ee/TheCelticFire
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