I should have seen it coming. I have long suspected you to be the most subservient of body parts, sitting out there all by yourself at the end of a row of bigger, stronger fingers. It’s only natural that you would feel inferior to the others. Seldom used and oft forgotten, your anger must have developed to the boiling point. Your random keystrokes on the Enter key should have tipped me off to your silent rebellion. But I didn’t listen, did I? And you got angry, didn’t you?

Ultimate Frisbee is a game during which the most common injuries involve twisted ankles, hyper extended knees and the dreaded Frisbee elbow. But seldom do normal, athletic, reasonably coordinated people break their fingers playing the game. And so you mounted your attack during that dive into the end zone. When you knew the Frisbee was out of reach, you snagged the blades of grass around you and bent sickeningly to the right. You would not even allow me the pleasure of an injury on a spectacular play, but rather, you chose your moment to make me appear the fool.

I can’t imagine your surprise when I stood and shook off the injury, rejoining the game in a flurry of sprints and arm-waving defense. I am sure that you had hoped to cripple me, to leave me writhing on the ground in pain. Nay I say to you. Nay will I bow to your twisted little mind.

But you did not stay silent for long, did you, Pinkie? You transformed the post-game handshakes from friendly gestures into mind-numbingly painful reminders of your treason. I admit that I was surprised and a little sickened at the sight of you facing outward from the rest of the fingers, snubbing them in your pride and arrogance.

I tried to pull you back into place, but you had grown fat (and not in the complimentary hip hop sense of the term). The grotesque swelling tightened the joint, preventing me from correcting your subservient stance.

How did it feel when I plunged you into ice? Not pleasant, I would imagine. I could feel you struggling, but your arrogance had quashed my mercy. I held you captive in the frigid water until the swelling had subsided. And then you were punished. I pulled you back into the knuckle where you belong. While I must admit that the pain was great, I knew you had been defeated. The visit to the doctor only confirmed my suspicions that you had failed in your attempts to tarnish my record of zero broken bones during a lifetime of assorted pain and injury.

robert fuel

p.s.- You’re dead to me.