Saturday's Storyteller: "I was taught grammar with a gun to my head."

by Belinda Roddie

I was taught grammar with a gun to my head. That is why you will never see me make a mistake grammatically. I will not even type in fragments because the green line that emerges in jagged mountains along my text serves as a somber warning. I will never make a mistake. I will never, ever make a mistake.

The boss is watching me as I type this. She is very tall and very muscular. She wears a leather jacket. She carries a revolver. It is not an old-fashioned revolver. It is one that will kill me instantly if I lapse once in this exercise. This is not a joke. I am afraid for my own safety.

I will not give you my boss's name. She is simply the Boss. One time, when a colleague of mine said, "Anyways," instead of "Anyway," she took him outside and we never saw him again. The only thing that remains from his desk is a lone scarf. I think there is a drop of blood still on it.

Another buddy of mine forgot the apostrophe in "it's" and typed, "Its raining." I can still hear the scremas as his fingernails were pulled out of his cuticles.

There is no escape. I sit here, hunched over the computer, my knuckles turning white. My face is ashen. I have not felt sunlight for two months. The boss is still watching me. She cannot see my screen, but she knows everything. She knows all of the things.

My life is to be grammatically sound. Ever since feeling the cold steel of a gun barrel against my cranium at the age of seven, I know it has been my fate. The Grammar Government decides who lives and who dies in an initiation. I knew five people my age who got shot because they could not define a dangling modifier.

I am only here because I am superior. I am only here because I have endured. I am Sergeant now within the Regime, and I am never expected to leave my desk.

I only know sentences.

I only know words.

I only

know

grammar

OHGODPLEASEHELPMEIAIN'TGONNATAKETHISNOMOREI'LLREBELTHEFUCKOUTOFTHISMADNESSAIEEEEEEEE

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This week's prompt was provided by Daniel Bulone.