The Stick Game

Recount a somewhat serious anecdote – a real or a fictional one—in the form of a joke. Use the rhythms and the voice you use when telling a joke, such as premise, setup and punch line.


Back when I used to live in Virginia, my brother and I would often invent our own games to entertain ourselves through the long summer days when playing video games was considered a shameful activity in the midst of such beautiful afternoons. I remember these games to be sporadic manifestations of our imaginations combined with our battle to overcome the monotony of childhood life. Often, they would come to fruition out of our usual competitive nature with one another; even though most of the games we invented never seemed to have any actual goals in the first place. Our parents were always against us seeing any ‘R’ rated movies growing up, however, violent action movies were never a problem. This was also before the era of violent video games, so we had to use our imaginations to fuel our need for an aggressive output. That being said, this particular game we invented seemed to be the one to end them all. The destruction of our youth.

I can’t exactly remember what this game was called, although I do recall what it consisted of. I imagine it arose from the type of dispute we always had over ‘who got who, first’ every time we shot at each other with our pointed fingers. That was how ‘The Shooting Game’ came to be called ‘The Stick Game.’ I’m sure you can figure out where this is going, and it pains me to think that we didn’t at the time. If you’ve ever heard your parents tell you not to do something because there was a chance someone could get their eye poked out, this was one of those situations. Nevertheless, the game consisted of throwing sticks at each other while hiding behind two adjacent trees. The object was to try and dodge the other player’s stick while trying to hit your opponent at the same time. Let’s just say my brother won after I dove out from behind my tree and connected my left eye to his stick.
As soon as this happened, I ran inside and cried to my mother like a little girl. I was then rushed to an eye doctor to see if there had been any real damage to my retina. I could only imagine the hell my brother was going through at home with my crazy father, despite the game being his idea in the first place. According to the doctor, my vision appeared to be fine, which made me wonder why I was forced to wear an eye patch over my face for the next two weeks. Although I knew how ridiculous it made me look, I kind of liked looking like an Asian pirate baby. I suppose it made me feel like a man who now had a cool battle scar and a good story to tell his friends at the lunch table. After I came back, however, my dad pulled my brother outside by his sleeve as I walked into the house. My brother began crying after he saw the patch on my eye.

“Look at him!” he cried, “Look at what you did to your brother!” It was then that I felt something strange come over me that I had never felt before. At the time, I couldn’t exactly describe it. It wasn’t sadness or empathy. And it wasn’t even the sight of my brother breaking down over such an unforeseeable accident. It was my father. It was the first time I had actually seen him give a shit about my general well being. I mean, I knew he was doing this to teach my brother a lesson, but it was over something that he’d done to me. Something that might’ve actually caused me permanent damage for the rest of my life. It was then that I knew why I started to cry in that moment. My father might act like he hates me sometimes, but there was something in him that caused him pain at the sight of me actually getting hurt. What was this feeling? And why had I never seen it before?