Tonight me and Brandon are also going to join countless other wrestling fans at a Ring of Honor (follow them on twitter!) show in San Antonio!! Soooooo excited!
So Brandon thought it would be fun for me to use a wrestling-related writing prompt today. I agreed, and we put the word out on twitter and facebook for ideas. We received several good ones, but I decided to go with this:
"The People's Eyebrow returns to the ring because..."
This awesome prompt was provided by my twitter friend James Neal (@BloodandBlade on twitter). Thanks James!
And here's what I came up with:
It was late-summer hot, the sort of hot that discourages all but the
meanest of children and biting bugs from venturing out. Timmy and his
little sister Sara played in their front yard. They weren't allowed
to leave the small rectangle of parched grass that defined their
space but that was okay. Today the lawn was a wrestling ring.
Sara raised one tiny fist to the sky and declared, in her squeaky
little-girl voice: “The People's Eyebrow returns to the ring
because...!”
“It's People's Elbow, dumbass!” Timmy said. He was ten and
very worldly so he knew these things.
“I'm not a dumbass, you are!” Sara said.
“At least I know the difference between an eyebrow and an elbow,”
her older brother retorted. “You can't even put Mr. Whiskers in a
half-Nelson.”
Mr. Whiskers was Sara's most beloved stuffed animal. Once he was
velveteen-soft and the delicious pink of whipped cupcake frosting.
Today his fur was coarse and dishwater-gray. Sara clutched him in one
grimy hand and shouted: “Yes I can!” Even though she had no idea
what a half-Nelson was.
“Oh yeah? Let's see it then!” Timmy said.
Sara threw Mr. Whiskers to the ground and flopped down on top of him.
“Count to three, ref!” She hollered.
Timmy, who had been crouched down on his haunches, fell over on his
back laughing. He laughed so loud it drowned out the roar of traffic
rushing by. He hugged his arms to his belly and gulped and coughed
and sputtered.
Sara jumped to her feet. Her cheeks were red with indignation. “Stop
it Timmy!”
“You...you...” Her brother started, then dissolved into another
fit of giggles.
“Shut up!”
“You think that was a half-Nelson?” He finally managed.
There came a stirring from a few feet away.
Brother and sister stopped fighting. Their heads swiveled in the
direction of the sound.
“She's getting up,” Sara said.
In front of their yard, in the strip of pavement that was the
no-man's land between sidewalk and the black tar of the street, lay
Kelly. She was seventeen and dangerous, with white-blonde hair that
fell to her waist, a body that made all the men in the neighborhood
stare, and green eyes that flashed fire when she got wound up—and
she was always getting wound up. Sara had heard her parents call
Kelly a lush. She didn't know what that meant, but she knew that the
older girl got dizzy and fell down on the street a lot.
Sara tiptoed up to the very edge of the lawn to get a better look.
Her brother followed. They stood there in silence and watched Kelly's
eyes flutter open, unseeing. Suddenly, a daring grin spread across
Timmy's face. He took a step onto the sidewalk. Sara gasped.
“What are you doing?” She said.
“I'll show you a half-Nelson,” the boy said and joined the
semi-conscious girl in the gutter.
Timmy lifted her torso and twisted it around so that she was facing
away from him and he held her arms up over her head while squeezing
her from behind. Or he tried. Her arms went up and then promptly
flopped back down. Her head lolled on her neck. Her pretty green eyes
remained open but they didn't register anything.
“See?” Timmy said. “This is how you do a half-Nelson.”
Sara watched, simultaneously fascinated and terrified by her
brother's daring move. Cars thundered past him but he seemed
oblivious. He squeezed tighter.
“She couldn't move, even if she wanted to,” the boy said.
Then Kelly blinked, and life returned to her eyes. Color flooded into
her cheeks. Her neck muscles stiffened. Her hands clenched into
fists.
“Gah!” She sputtered.
In one swift move, Kelly ripped her arms out of Timmy's grasp,
whirled around, and shoved him—hard—into oncoming traffic.
“NOOO!” Sara screamed.
Timmy's limp body sailed into the grill of a Ford pickup. He hit the
truck with a spine-cracking crunch, then bounced off and flew into
the gutter on the opposite side of the street. He landed in a
twisted, lifeless heap and lay there, unmoving.
Kelly watched everything from where she remained—in the gutter on
this side of the street. She didn't say anything, but her expression
changed from fury to confusion to horror. Sara dropped to her knees.
Blades of grass scratched her skin. Her tormented cries echoed back
and forth across the busy street. She wanted to go to her brother and
comfort him, but she couldn't. She was rooted to the spot.
She wasn't allowed to leave the lawn.
.....Holy Crap.
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