Losing a Rounder

My submission to Cake Wednesday Write In.

It’s written in the form of a letter/note, so it’s one where you kind of have to use your imagination and trust your own interpretation. I really enjoy reading these kind of stories, where you never get all the details and it’s only told from one perspective. (A great example is Neil Gaiman’s Orange.) However I’ve never written a story like this before so I’m fully willing to accept that it is crap.

~

You were always a sore loser. You were the kind of kid who cried when he lost a rounder at primary school. I mean, do you remember the time you got so worked up you threw the bat and it slammed straight into Paula’s kneecap and then we weren’t allowed to play rounders again, only quiet indoor games with teacher supervision.

I don’t know if you will remember that because, you know, you’ve done a lot of other things since then. I remember it really well though. I think I’ve been scared of you ever since. I don’t blame you for any of it.

Well I do actually. I blame you for all of it. But that’s not what I’m writing to you for, so let’s just brush that under the carpet for now.

They told me to record this to you in a video and they’d let you watch it. But I didn’t really want to do that so I’m writing this instead. In my best handwriting and everything. I’m not using a fountain pen though – shock horror, don’t tell Mrs Parsons or anything.

See this is the thing isn’t it, you always make me feel like I’m a kid again. Which would be a good thing but it’s not, and you know why it’s not, but still. It’s not your fault but it is your fault but oh whatever.

So, like I was saying, you always were a sore loser so I guess I wasn’t very surprised when I heard the news. It sounds just like the kind of thing that you would do – that sounds awful, doesn’t it? Everyone else did that shocked thing like ‘I never thought he would’ and ‘You never think that will happen to someone you know’ and so on, but I wasn’t really shocked and I guess I always thought it would happen to you. Or you would happen to it – I’m pretty sure you were the cause and not the effect in this situation.

I think Paula still walks with a limp when the weather’s cold, you know. I wonder what she thought when she heard. I wonder if she remembers you throwing that bat. I wonder how often she thinks about you.

24 Oct This entry was published on October 24, 2013 at 6:25 pm and is filed under short story. Bookmark the permalink. Follow any comments here with the RSS feed for this post.