Playground Lessons - TWP prompt

Michael let the taunts, the jibes, the threats and laughter slide over him. Often he imagined a great black cloud which acted as a layer between him and the rest of the world, a layer of protection. Once that was in place, he was safe, but it couldn’t protect him from everything.

Looking back, he’d been about five when trouble had found him. With his ice-blond hair and pale grey eyes, Michael had stuck out like a sore thumb. The children of the village tended to be dark haired and dark eyed. As soon as mum had started taking him to the local play-park, it became obvious he was never going to fit in. The girls seemed positively terrified of him, herding together and casting wary glances in his direction, running to their parents if Michael drew too close.

The boys were, of course, boys. They weren’t about to let some miniature freak upset the balance. Michael had quickly grown used to the biting, punching and kicking. He’d even endured the sand forced down his throat and flung into his eyes, all without comment. Those things were physical, ephemeral, but words were not. Words stuck in your head and played across the back of your eyes when you were trying to drift into sleep. Words circled your brain, often in bright neon and words had power.

Words could wound at point of impact and continue to wound forever. Words stayed, they could not be erased once spoken, once heard. Words hurt deep inside where the light couldn’t reach, where fear and doubt and self-loathing lurked in the shadows, waiting for a chance to consume words of power and feed them up to the brain. Words like ‘freak’, ‘monster’ and ‘we hate you, go away’. Those words played over and over at night, whilst the oak branches tapped out a counterpoint on the window and Mum’s exhausted snores hummed the melody.

It hadn’t been a special day, nothing unusual had happened. The kids weren’t being any rougher than usual and mum wasn’t wearing her worried or cross face. It had been an average day, until James decided the secret pinches and handfuls of sand in the face just weren’t cutting it for him on that particular day. He’d stood four-square in the center of the sandpit. His hands had balled into soft child-fists, planted firmly on his non-existent waist, legs spread for balance and chubby face screwed up in an imitation of his father’s frown.

“Go away.”

Michael had elected to ignore this new tactic, hoping this would discourage further exploration of a new tangent. Sand flew, blinding him, kicked by James’ trim feet. Michael remembered wondering how he could kick so much sand with such tiny feet.

“Go away. You can’t play here.”

Michael rose and shuffled over to the furthest corner of the sand-pit, hoping it would be enough, but it wasn’t to be.

Looking back from the great age of seventeen, Michael could afford a rueful grin, but James’ next actions had proved too much for the five year-old Michael. His antagonist had stomped across the pit, placed himself right in front of the silent Michael and pushed one step too far.

“Go away. You smell and your mum eats poo!”

Whether there was the burgeoning of understanding on that day, Michael was never sure, but something snapped, Perhaps it had to do with James attacking Michael’s beloved mother, a line that should never have been crossed, but it began in that moment. All the trouble that followed came from that single line. Michael had looked up slowly, fixed his strange eyes on James and quietly said;

“No.”

Twelve years later, Michael still didn’t know what had happened after that single word was spoken. He’d felt a rush of wind, a momentary dimming of his sight, like a shadow on the sun, then James was sprawled on his back, nose bleeding profusely and his blood was mingling with a stream of tears from eyes which were bruised with shock.

It hadn’t taken long for the two mothers to run over, each sweeping up their child and offering comfort. It took equally as little time for it to be clear Michael had suffered no damage whilst James continued to bleed and wail constantly. His mother had turned accusing eyes on Michael’s confused parent.

“Why’d he do that? James was just playing!”

“Michael never touched him.”

Author's note - This an extract from a much larger work, - as yet unfinished and unedited - but I thought it fitted neatly with the TWP prompt (and I haven't had time to write a new piece *wink*)