Punched in the face

At age 11, the bully and I met near my house after school.

(By the way, before you read any further, take a moment to think about an issue you’d like to resolve. Then this hypnotic story will be more useful and not simply a regular story. Now back to our regularly scheduled programming.)

Why were we meeting? Because earlier that day, he wanted to fight. So here we were, near my home, with a small crowd of other kids.

Since I didn’t know how these things worked, I decided to make some rules. I took off my digital watch which had a stop watch feature, and I told him we’d fight for three minutes. Then I asked another kid to start timing.

We circled a bit. He punched me in the face. I tried punching him, but I couldn’t land a single punch. I suspect it’s because I didn’t know what I was doing.

His punch landed. Then another. And another. He was pretty good at punching me in the face. It stung, but my fat cheeks sort of cushioned the blows, and I didn’t cry.

When the fight was over, despite my not landing a single punch, he was the only one bleeding. Sounds impossible, right? It’s because the bully bit his own tongue while dodging one of my punches. Ah the irony!

Though I’d clearly lost the fight, I felt a sense of satisfaction. I’d stood up to the bully. And my 11-year-old self learned some things from it.

What did my younger self learn? Ah, that comes in part two.

In the meantime, let your subconscious ponder what my younger self may have learned.

Thanks for reading part one of this hypnotic story.

And stay tuned for part two.