Scraped Knee

-michael hoblak

Timmy Thompson wasn't very happy at the moment. No, how could a ten-year-old boy ever be happy when his parents, particularly his father, had declined his well thought out request for them to buy him that new Super Deluxe Batmobile toy? Exactly. No ten-year-old boy ever could.

So Timmy had told his parents that he was moving out, because he no longer wished to live under their totalitarian dictatorship, though not quite in those exact words; he packed his backpack full of clothes and toys and snacks his mother gave to him, and bade them farewell.

Like the man who was ready for the world that he clearly was not, little Timmy Thompson stepped out the front door of the house and proceeded down to the driveway. He looked back for one last time, to show his parents that he was ready to do this, though he did not stop walking, and not able to see where he was going, tripped on a small pothole in the cement.

Falling forward, Timmy landed hard on the ground and saw that his knee was starting to bleed. It hurt. He cried.

Timmy's father came running up to him and knelt down beside him. “Are you okay, champ?”

The youngster tried to hide his tears from his father, but it was no use – his face was already stained with them. So he gave an honest answer: “No.”

Timmy's father smiled, told him it would be alright, that it was just a scraped knee, and picked him up and took him back into the house. He cleaned up Timmy's knee and put a band-aid on it, and then leaned in close to Timmy and whispered, “So what were you saying about this Super Deluxe Batmobile toy?”

Timmy explained it to his father, who seemed impressed.

“So then,” Timmy's father said, revealing a box from behind his back, “it would look an awful lot like this, wouldn't it?” It was the Super Deluxe Batmobile toy.

“Yes! Thank you, Dad!”

They hugged, opened the Super Deluxe Batmobile toy, and played with it together, having a good time. Timmy never left home again, not until he was thirty-seven and finally had a job with which he could properly support himself.

fin.