My blood saved someone's life
In my last year at junior high school, they'd been doing a lot of work on the drainage in what had been waste ground, but would become our new playing fields. As a result, there'd been a lot of re-inforced concrete pipes around. Several of these had been broken up quite thoroughly by vandals and as such we were strictly forbidden to play on them. You may guess for yourself how well that worked.

These pipes were re-inforced with metal rods, and there were a number of these had been torn loose and used as swords etc. in play fights. But one day, Paul O'Malley got a bit cross with me and didn't want to play any more. I can't remember what we'd been doing immediately beforehand, but he picked up one of these bars, and said he'd hit me with it if I didn't leave him alone. I thought he was joking, but he swung it like a baseball bat and clipped me on the right side of my head, just above the ear.

Something went click. That wasn't a playful tap, he'd swung an iron bar at my head with malicious intent, and was probably planning on doing so again. He had to die. You've heard of the 'red mist'? This was the exact opposite. This wasn't a playground-style "I'm going to kill you!"; meaning "I might thump you about a bit, but we'll be friends again by lunchtime.". This was a clear, and reasoned decision to end the life of another human being, because in my eyes, he'd just tried to do the same to me.

I barrelled into him and got him down reasonably easily - I suspect he may also have been a bit stunned by what he'd just done. I knelt on his arms, clasped my hands tight around his throat and without any fuss at all, began to choke the life from him. It was clear very quickly that he realised what was happening; this wasn't a playground fight, there were no teachers within 100 yards, he'd crossed a line, and now he was going to die for it. I wasn't shouting or screaming, and he certainly couldn't - from a distance it would just look like a bit of rough-and-tumble.

What saved him, and in retrospect, me too, was when my blood began to drip from my hair and land in his face. At first, I couldn't work out where it was coming from, or why he'd be bleeding, as I hadn't even punched him. Then the vision went in my right eye as blood filled it. Something went click again.

I got off him and very calmly went off to find a teacher. Give him his due, Mr Barron handled it quite well when I walked up to him with blood covering half my face and running down my neck. The swipe with the bar had opened a two-inch-long gash which was bleeding profusely in the way of many scalp wounds. It was tended, cleaned and dressed, then I was sent for stitches and got to go home for the rest of the day.

I never got in trouble for trying to kill Paul O'Malley. He got a week's suspension, because he'd hit me with a weapon, but nobody believed that it had been anything other than a playground tussle that got a little heated. When he came back, the headmaster made us shake hands and promise no hard feelings, or reprisals. I've never felt like that again, but I have often wondered how different things would have been, if I'd been kneeling a little bit more upright, and the blood had run down my back instead.
(Leo Sasquatch hates being the grown-up, Fri 8 Aug 2008, 13:50, 2 replies)

woah
*click*
( Vipros. clever got me this far, then tricky got me in, Fri 8 Aug 2008, 14:55, closed)

Ditto.
*Million clicks!*
(ice9, Fri 8 Aug 2008, 16:03, closed)