Life Story #2: The Sinister Sister

My name is Anthony, and I am a chronic flincher. I'll explain what this means for those of you who are unaware of this term . A "flincher" is someone who gives into the natural impulse to defend himself when a perceived threat to their safety occurs. For example if you've ever had someone pretend to throw something at you and your reaction was either to 1.) Freak out 2.) Block the imaginary object or 3.) Commando roll out of the way, then you too are a flincher.

As I mentioned earlier flinching is really just a natural reaction to a perceived danger. If people didn't flinch or react to oncoming dangers (real or imagined) than the possibility of getting hit in the face by real stuff would happen a lot more often. However, despite that, it is considered a sign of weakness if you flinch, which I do. So I bring this subject up because its not my fault that I flinch and I want to defend myself and all others who can relate to this true life story entitled...

The Sinister Sister (pt.1) *

The bedroom mirror instantly cracks from top to bottom as the full force of my body meets up with the glass. Sitting in the spot where the impact occurred is me; dazed, afraid and confused by what has just occurred. Following the sound of the mirror breaking is utter silence. My attacker and I remain absolutely still in hopes of not drawing any further attention to ourselves and this terrible turn of events. Sadly this brief silence is broken by the sound of a grown man's voice yelling out, "What's going on up there?!" 

It is evident, without a word being spoken between us, that both my attacker and myself are trying to think of a good way to answer his question. Instead of quickly responding however, we just continue sitting motionless for what seems like forever until we muster up the courage to tell a bold face lie. "Nothing!" is our response, as if the broken mirror, which will undoubtedly be discovered, will somehow collaborate with our answer by fixing itself. Our response is apparently not good enough as our parents begin marching up the stairs. My parents slowly begin opening my attacker's bedroom door. As they look inside the room the first thing my parents see is my attacker/sister on the bed, me on the floor and behind me a shattered mirror. Our parents, extremely upset at this moment, demanded to know what happened. Saying "nothing" would no longer suffice so we told them everything. This is what happened.

Have you ever had a friend or a sibling that got that look in their eye (see picture on the right). You know, that look like they are plotting to do something really stupid that is going to involve you being in some form of discomfort or pain. This look is usually  followed by  them pulling a chair from underneath you as you are about to sit down. Or them aggressively chucking some random object at you for seemingly no reason. Well I didn't see this look in my sister's eyes prior to the events that led up to us breaking the mirror. She was able to mask the look that would have indicated to me that she was about to try to seriously hurt me for no reason. What started as an enjoyable moment  consisting of my sister and I jumping on her bed like a trampoline, ended with her waiting till I was in mid air to push me off the bed into her mirror.

To this day I have no idea what was going through her mind when she pushed me. In fact this was just one of many times when she attacked me for no discernible reason and without warning. I am not sure if she was trying to kill me or she just wanted to let off some steam, but here is the point. The reason I flinch is because I had an older sister who pushed me off a bed into a mirror at not just the peak of my jump, but at the peak of my having fun. So now, no matter what situation I am in, I am easily susceptible to flinching whether the threat is real or not. This is because I have learned adversely through my forced flying back stroke into a mirror that we are never safe. So for you people out their who make fun of us flinchers and act all tough in the face of danger remember this story of the sinister sister. We flinchers are just cautious and prepared for anything and everything unlike yourselves.

*This story is accurate but somewhat exaggerated for story telling purposes. The sinister sister is actually a very nice person now. No awesome people, like myself, were hurt in the telling of the events of this story.