Christian

====A little bit about me: I don't know how I discovered writing. My brother was always more athletic than me but I could always read and write circles around him so I guess I just kept running with it. Someone remind me to thank him for that because now I feel like I have a lot to share in terms of short stories. I love a good story. I like it when an author takes risks with their writing. I have knack for literary analysis and I love looking at stories and poetry from different angles. I like to write about sports where the risk is higher than the reward like boxing. I find that even the harshest realities seem to have a seeded underlying romance in them. I don't actively think about a theme or plot or anything while I'm writing, I just write and I let the story come together. Also I hate when things are described with...too much fluff. Not everything is the most beautiful, magnificent, majestic, enthralling thing in the world. We are not all unique, interesting, and pure snowflakes. Simple language.====

This excerpt is from one of my soliloquy submissions. The main character is Louis "Sweet Lou" Bean, an up and coming fighter who is in a tough exhibition match. I really liked this story because although it retains a lot of classic elements it also takes a bit of a new direction in terms of plot. Also I slid in a lot of real life boxing phrases like, "Beat that drum" "The phantom punch" "Saved by the bell" which I think give the story more weight. I cut it off at the good part because well...That's life.

“C’mon kid, c’mon you’ve been catching his jab with your face all night. It’s getting hard to watch. I told your momma that I’d try to keep you lookin’ at least a little pretty.” Gus said while squeezing a cool wet sponge over my razor short hair. I grinned and slurred through the hard rubber of my mouth piece, “Gus-ss are you sayin’ I’m not pretty anymore?” “No, no you’re still pretty kid, you just need to let your hands go Sweet Lou, He’s gonna turn you black and blue soon.” The bell rang and I was back at it eating a jab buffet. If you don’t know what a jab feels like bring your car to a sudden stop. Your head snaps back because inertia just punched you right in the face. It was the fifth round so I’m sure my head was snapped back well over a hundred times already. We had a plan though, and in boxing you are always rewarded for sticking to your plan; even when your opponent is just shit-canning you with a jab all night. I could hear Gus shouting and pounding his fist on the canvas screaming. “C’mon! Duck the jab for the love of god!” So I did, I ducked the jab feeling the red padded glove whiz past my head brushing against my skin. I threw a retaliation punch, a counter punch, a malicious left hook over the top. I aimed to push my tightly taped and padded knuckles through his wide open right eye. I watched the force transfer through my hand to his skull and then his brain. I knew I had him, he staggered and rocked back onto his heels. I threw everything I had at him. I was anxious for the kill. I socked and buried punches into his stomach, hearing each punch accented with the thudding of leather onto skin. I beat that drum. I wasn’t trying to punch him, I was trying to punch through him. I never saw the punch coming. The old timer’s call it a phantom punch. It’s a punch that wouldn’t put you on your ass if you saw it coming. That’s why they call it a phantom punch, you don’t see it, just like you don’t see your demons. It’s the historic punch that put Sonny Liston down in his rematch against Muhammad Ali. It’s never the power of the phantom punch that puts you on your ass seeing stars and counting constellations. That’s what I get though for trying to charge in like a wild bear into a house; I should’ve expected to take a couple shotgun shells to the face. When the punch hit it shredded the right side of my face. When you feel a punch before you see it, your brain shuts down. It’s your brain saying you can’t protect yourself so it’ll do it for you. It tells your legs to betray your heart, and no matter how much you want to stand you see yourself falling. Slowly at first, and then inevitably falling, you can’t catch yourself. You can’t brace yourself. You just fall and hope the landing is soft. It’s hard to say what makes a fighter get up. Maybe it’s the voice in their head, the voice that pulled them through every minute of intense training. Maybe it’s a rage that burns up their guts and makes them ready to annihilate again; a rage similar to the lethal force of a B-52 bomber plane when it gets refueled and the okay from HQ to decimate another city. The thing that always brought me to my feet was my dad. I heard him every time my backside kissed the canvas. He always instructed me how to get up. He’d say, “Sit up, brace with your left hand, good, good, right hand now, yes, yes, good. Now just put your feet under you son. Look! You’re up!” As the ref asked me if I know where I am I nod. I’m not acknowledging him though, I’m acknowledging my dad. My dad who’s saying, “Now prove you’re too tough to die.” His instructions kicked in when the ref was counting to five. I was bouncing on my toes and pounding my fists together by nine. The referee ruled me fit to fight at nine and a half. The round ended before I could get my hands on him. Most people call that saved by the bell, but they don’t realize he was the one who was saved not me. I was going to put him down for good. Gus pulled out the hard wooden stool, I told him, I’d rather stand. “Kid, Kid, are you with me?” Gus questioned. “…Yeah, Yeah I’m here,” I replied. “Look at me, look at me, don’t think I won’t stop this, I ain’t gonna watch him pound your face into hamburger,” Gus said. I heard him loud and clear. “It’s the last round kid and you’re down on points so you gotta swing for the fences. Take off his chin, send him into orbit. I’m calling it off if you hit the canvas again.” “Get the stretcher ready for him Gus,” I said and rolled my shoulders and took a deep breath.