Fight Scene Deconstructed

A double super-fabulous twin sideways flip brings Ron the Crusader up and over the outstretched and legally deadly leg of George the Paraplegic Maker. George pulls back his leg and skips backwards, raising his fists up and over his head and showing only elbows and wrists in what he names his homage to if-you-can’t-see-my-eyes-then-you-don’t-know-where-I’m-looking-to-strike montage, grunting the words in a single breath before audibly releasing his remaining air through a guttural noise in his throat, not unlike the sounds of long-distance spitters preparing their phlegm for launch. Ron lands softly from his flip and drops into a deep-kneed stance, his thighs bouncing above and below his knees like a plucked rubber band, and his left foot pointing toward George at a profound angle of attack.

“That the best you got?” Ron says as he pivots from his deep knee-bend stance and sweeps his back leg toward George. George quickly discovers the disadvantage of his elbows and wrists stance as Ron’s foot catches George’s ankle: while it was to George’s advantage that Ron not see where George looked, it was to Ron’s advantage that George’s fists and elbows blocked his view of Ron’s attack. George considers this lesson as he falls awkwardly forward; at the final moment before contacting the mat, George twists his body and dips his shoulder, forcing his shoulder to take the impact and using his tucked head to force a somewhat-diagonal roll in the direction opposite from Ron.

When George regains his balance, returning to his elbows and wrists stance, he charges forward and forcefully drops his opening right fist toward the top of Ron’s unprotected head, the motion blurs George’s arm and chop-positioned hand, creating the startling illusion of George attacking with the head of a moon-bladed axe. Ron launches from his deep stance and jumps up and back to the left away from George’s strike, landing like a grasshopper, his thighs bouncing in an anxious meter.

“That may work when the cameras are rolling,” Ron says, “but here, when it’s just you and me, we’re not impressed.”

Home Deprovement

The hole in the bathroom wall teases me. Every time I pass it, it laughs at my manhood. I am a homeowner, for god’s sake. I should act like one. But each time I pass the hole, it jeers, its corners curling up imperceptibly into a mocking smile.