Stitching: A Short Story

Saved by the bell, I went to my corner and it seemed as the outcome was sealed. No one had ever been knocked down by Alan Smith and ever gotten back up. The ringside team came to my aid as I fell onto the uneven stool. Resting my shoulders against the uncomfortable steel fencing of the octagon, I began to hallucinate coach Brock entering the octagon and giving me a pep talk. It only lasted a few seconds as the daggering pain of the cutmen stitching my left eye brought me to my senses. Savouring every second between this round and the next, I knew that whatever was going to happen after the bell rung was going to be worse than any pain I could possibly endure getting stitched up.

The cutman finished stitching my left eye as I caught a glimpse

Meters away from the door I felt an unusually large and uneven mound in the carpeting. I glanced down and found my right foot on the face of my father. It took me a second to pull my foot back as my brain completely blanked out. I tried to piece together why my father was laying on the floor, was he hiding from someone? In just seconds my mind flickered through a dozen scenarios until I saw a large wet patch on my father’s maroon sweater which was overflowing onto the torn up carpeting. I knelt down and held onto his cold hands, his palm was in contact with mine and the rear of his hand was tightly held against my chest. I dropped the baseball bat and then put my other hand behind his neck. I tugged his neck off the carpeting and dropped a thick tear onto his sweater. I then rose wiping the tear of my cheek and walked towards the landline. Dialing for my grandmother I turned around to get another look at my father and saw my mother on the other end of the living room. I gasped and covered my mouth with my right hand. Multiple tears began to roll down my

She disconnected the call and I sensed that she would be here any moment. Waiting on my grandmother’s arrival, I walked towards the dusty doormat, knelt down, and picked up the bronze door knob. I put my fingers into the hole where the door knob use to be and pulled the front door open. A gust of cold air struck me as I walked out and sat onto the frosted doorstep. With my eyes on the knob the thought of my father’s huge smile came to mind along with the thought of Los Angeles. A flurry of heavy tears raced down my face.

After the death of my parents my grandmother moved in with me. She became my mother, my father, and my therapist. My grandmother helped me go back to school and then eventually get a job at the local grocery store. She helped me heal and forget about the tragic event and sooner rather than later I began to feel like I never had parents to begin