DEMOLITION (any gender, mid to late teens)
I'm perfect for this. You know I am. This is THE YEAR. The competitions this year are completely centered on demolition equipment. Bulldozers battling backhoes. Dynamite planters battling wrecking balls. All that equipment dad trained me on since we were kids.
And don't say I'm still a kid, Sean. Once I'm inside one of those machines, nobody will be seeing a kid, they won't be seeing a teenager, they'll be seeing the MACHINE and that sucker will be doing better battle than ANYTHING operated by a 21 year old. They'll probably be thinking someone OVER the age limit is playing.
Just let me borrow your ID card for the try-outs. We look almost exactly alike, the try-outs are halfway across the country, they'll never figure it out. The only reason the starting age is 21 is because that's the legal age to risk your life. As if I don't know what I'm risking.
Sean, what's the point of me living if things continue like this? After this year, who knows what the competitions will be? Probably something I can't do, definitely something YOU can't do, given your condition. So it's a lifetime of me working in the garbage zones, barely keeping you fed, much less scraping together enough money to get you back into school. That's our life from here on in.
If I can get that prize money, Sean, you go to school, you get a decent job, we both get out of this hell hole-- hey, I'll even go back to school myself, okay? Dad's gone but right up to his last day of work, he was trying to get us somewhere. You've tried to be dad ever since... now it's my turn.
Copyright 2016 by Matt Haynes.
If you would like to use this piece, please credit: "Courtesy of Matt Haynes and The Pulp Stage"