Paintball Dream

It’s a disturbing day dream. Disturbing, and lovely.




Our youngest talked with his father last night, who told him that they would be going to play paintball on Saturday with their church group because it was free. My wife tells me that church groups budget these kinds of free trips to lure people into their churches. Our eldest and I had already planned to play paintball this Saturday. That would put the four of us there together, on two different teams. Me and our eldest. Our youngest and his father.



My daydream starts after we’re all there and geared up. And as we’re walking to the field, I shoot Buttleak in the butt. He gets mad and turns around, so I shoot him in the dick. They tell me to stop, but maybe I shoot him again in the dick, really close, pretending that I don’t know any better. I’m not around guns much, I tell them, I don’t know how these things work. Then we get out on the field, and the horn blows, and I sprint towards him. Yeah, I get hit over and over again, and I don’t care. The game relies on compliance: you get shot and then you comply with the rules saying you raise your gun above your head and walk off the field. But I have other plans. And as I’m repeatedly shot with paintballs, I bee-line to Buttleak and tackle him to the ground by breaking his knee. He goes down, and I go down on top of him, as I repeatedly bash him in the dick over and over and over again until I can see the blood stain on his pants. And then I start working his face and don’t stop until his face is wrecked. Completely wrecked. Just a mass of loosely pieced together flesh and sinus, held together by strings of skin that haven’t been ripped apart yet. And then I shoot him in the mouth over and over and over and over again. And I laugh. Oh, how I laugh. As the game refs come over and say something completely stupid like, “This isn’t part of the game.” Yeah, it is part of the game. And I laugh and smile at the sky that welcomes me.



And then the daydream begins again. Like a DVD on repeat. Making me tense and anxious, as well as relieving some of the tension and anxiety with every mental tackle. With every imagined crack of kneecap as it breaks. With every pound of my gun into his crotch, sounding like the beating of a wet, soggy sponge being pounded free of its blood liquid. And I laugh. And the DVD repeats.