Thought I'd share!
Prompt: CHILDHOOD IS A MYSTERY WE ONLY UNDERSTAND LATER
I can’t honestly say I know why I did it. Something raised out of me that moment- a beast unleashing fire from its jaws, biting into anything that was around. Even now, the exact nature of my fury was a mystery, though with repeated episodes I have gone someway to understanding the nature of my rage.
In all likelihood my brother just wanted a turn at being the star. Not content to merely stand beside me, he grabbed at me and bleated that it was his turn. I don’t remember shouting but I do remember just turning and bopping him with the hard, solid wood guitar. This was not one of those plastic imitations; despite its small stature the weapon was well crafted and built to resist damage. It certainly wasn’t a WWF prop guitar (and since I was 6, I can’t imagine this being my inspiration. It was just the fury that caused my attack.)
The top of my brother’s head gushed with blood almost immediately. And then the real pain began.
He emerge from his garage with fire in his belly (amongst other things I would later discover.) How do I slow this down to provide an adequate description? Indeed it was only due to his therapy that I even remember this moment at all. He threw me to the ground and stole the guitar from my fingers. He threw it violently against the garage wall, shattering it. My brother cried, quite possibly at the sight of my father rather than the sight of blood. My father pushed me as I rose and he removed his belt.
It was not the first time I had been belted and, in truth, for years I considered it necessary. Certainly I didn’t clock my brother with a guitar again. His anger would recede and there was some resentment, from my perspective, for the soft way he handled my younger siblings. It was after his diagnosis and through the subsequent therapy that my father formed a more balanced way of dealing with disappointing children. The day he sat me down, I was an adult by then, and explained he was sorry for what I had considered a necessary evil, was a strange day. My brother didn’t acknowledge the abuse, in his mind it had never happened. I didn’t relate to the term either. To me he had been tough and on that day I had hit my brother I had deserved it. A victim’s mentality perhaps but I never saw it as anything more.
Why I hit my brother that day is still a mystery. Where I got my rage from is not.
For the record I did actually belt Mike with a guitar and I can't remember why I did it. The rest is more or less made up or exaggerated. Students were impressed with my skills anyway.
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