Splinter

Drowsy

“Ouch,” Max complained dryly. “Ouch, ouch, ouch…” He continued a bit more anxiously.

“Just stay still, ok? I have to find it,” said his brother.

Trusting your brother when you’re a kid is a double edged option. It could go very well or it could go terribly wrong and end up dreadfully.

“You’re not doing it right.” Disgusted, Max took short glimpses at his finger being poked at with a needle by his brother. “Look what you’re doing!”

“Calm down, calm down, what a wuss…” His brother had a strange glazed look on his face. It seemed he was enjoying the whole procedure a lot more than Max would have like him to.

“Mike! Oh, look, look, look, blood!” yelled Max.

“Stay still!”

Mike had stuck the needle in the wound and was twisting it left and right making the hole bigger.

“What are you doing?!”

“I’m fishing for it.”

“Twisting the needle left and right?! That’s not fishing!”

 “No? Ok. I’m out of here,” and Mike walked away leaving Max with a bloody needle stuck in his finger and a splinter laughing at all of them.

Gently, Max pulled the needle out and for days tried to forget about the splinter.

The finger seemed to gain a life of its own as time went by. It looked like it didn’t belong to his hand. When he finally decided to tell his mother about it, he was rushed to hospital. The splinter came out alright. And it brought a friend.

“Next time you get a splinter…” started the doctor.

“… I’ll make sure to help my brother like he helped me. After all, we are twins. And twins must look alike, right?”

Writer's Dash