Nunchucks! and Voyeurism

Short story, 702 words

As most average, red-blooded Americans are apt to do, I was earlier today surveilling my neighbor’s backyard in hopes of espying some form of potentially objectionable shenanigans under the guise of pretending to make absolutely certain that their dog, a mostly agreeable, yet rodent-like miniature pincer, was indoors.

For some reason or another, he just sets my dogs hackles afire, if I may be permitted the metaphor.

A fence separates our two yards, but the ultimate structural integrity is suspect, at best.  The same goes for my other neighbor and his house/fence/etc. (who also happens to own a smallish, yappy type dog that weighs less than a MacBook and whose dog also does nothing to endear itself to my pack of five, whatsoever).

And so�"as I’m wont to do with far more frequency than I’d care to acknowledge, readily�"I’ve already, in only 144 words, digressed from my anecdote’s entire raison d’être because what we’ve really established here as the whole attention-grabber of the story is an innocuous little case of friendly neighborhood voyeurism.

I admit to taking very little interest in the vast majority of my neighbors’ undertakings, mostly due to the fact that I am an unreserved narcissist, and I happen to find the lives of most other people dim and uninteresting.

However, today I saw in the backyard immediately adjacent to my own what I, upon first glance, assumed was the uncanny spectacle of an early twenty-something male in shorts and sleeveless shirt�"a shirt that, at one time, had had sleeves, but of which had since been removed with scissors in the masculine aesthetic of calculated haphazardness�"vivaciously twirling a baton�"which I would here like to point out only piqued my curiosity more because of the self-image I have known him, for the last two years, to so dedicatedly project to others: one of authoritative and unrelenting badassness�"one that says to any lookerson: Woe is to he[1] whom should cross my predetermined domestic threshold and, thus, unluckily find himself�"and more specifically, his face�"knowing the seven levels of utter fuckedupification both he and it will surely endure upon meeting my forged twin pistons of inescapable oblivion!

Projected alpha-male personae such as these do not typically lend themselves to the historically flamboyant nature of baton twirling, which of course, prompted my taking a closer look and only then revealed that my neighbor was not actually twirling a baton, but in fact, not incompetently wielding[2] a pair of the traditional but deadly Japanese pummeling weapons, nunchakus!

One of my greyhounds managed to escape through the patio door between my legs into the backyard while I simply stood there�"enthralled to see that a man I had previously mistaken for an oafish and bruising pummeler who dealt with unlucky transgressors only through the brute, Mephistophelian machinations of his meaty fists, turned out to be actually quite lithe, nimble even, with two weighty wooden sticks attached with a chain.

My greyhound stands on my patio, silently watching him with rapt attention, though this could be somewhat misleading as even my ceiling fan’s bladed rotation slowing down and coming to a stop produces a trance-like effect over him.

But the dog and I are both now adrift in the same vessel of wonderment.  I picture intruders stealthily attempting to enter his yard, only to be brought to the feet of their maker by the fleet and swirling devastation of my neighbor and his nunchakus!

Mercy will only be shown to a select few in order to carry his message to other would-be trespassers, which is: It’s your a*s!  Proceed at your own unadvised risk…

And so he has his nunchakus! and I happen to personally own five large dogs which, in my mind, pretty much makes our two houses the leastfuckwithable houses on the block, and this particular knowledge will undoubtedly help me sleep better tonight and every night from here on out.

Who needs 911 or Brinks Home Security when you have a half-ninja living next door?

Proceed at your own risk, indeed…

Reviews

[Christina May Shanaberg]

You're funny! When it comes to neighbors, you never know who you are dealing with, really. I wonder what mine think!

[deeps]

I really enjoyed this write. It is very well written with alot of vivid detail.
The imagery was awesome as well, I found this cute. Very enjoyable read.