Sep 10, 2007 15:34
A single slip. The blur of raising the axe above his head too fast, the wooden handle slickly slipping through grasping hands, sweaty hands suddenly clutching at the air. It went nearly straight up then into an arc, tumbling in his view - blade, handle, blade, handle. He had jerked his head back to watch and was falling backwards onto the brown earth, littered with decaying bits of twigs and leaves, buckskin colored pine-needles. Blade, handle, blade, handle.
What percentage of the axe is sharp? One edge of the blade. The statistics of the sharp edge of the blade landing in the skull of the dippy girl he'd earlier called "ripe for a mercy killing," were so small, yet she was standing in the apparent trajectory, watching the axe tumble. He knew, he knew she would be dead.
And impossibly, calmly, she reached out and caught it. It almost slipped from her hand, too. The weight of the thing and his sweat on the handle quite nearly made her lose it. She let out a squeak and dropped it, then clutched her shoulder. Four hours later in the emergency room, she found that she'd torn her rotator cuff. But that was four hours after she had managed to keep the tears from flowing, despite the pain. That was four hours after telling that little sh*t, as casually as possible that her mom had made her learn baton twirling. That was four hours of watching him grovel and tell her how utterly awesome she was and how he was such a jackhole. Four hours of fabulous pain and emotional pleasure.
She was the first girl that he ever bought flowers for. Gerber daisies.