Quiver

Looking again in the mirror, I see something. I’ve changed. It’s not the quiver or the bow making me look badass, I just AM badass. I’m starting to look like the kind of dude you don’t want to mess with, like some battle hardened commando from a rubbish YA novel.

The muscles around my upper arms have thickened and if I didn’t know better I’d say that for the first time in my life I’ve developed an upper abdomen. My back is straighter than it’s been in years. I can’t remember when the last time I properly cut my beard short was, it isn’t the longest I’ve ever had it, but the thicker, longer look suits me.

Hard to believe, this was the kid they laughed at. The other boys would flex and brag at me, because I didn’t have arm muscles. Does that matter? You’re seven for crying out loud. They laughed at me because I was small, because I wasn’t ‘buff.’

I’d like to pretend I cared. But I didn’t. They cared more than I did.

Now if only I could walk in on that scene, quiver across my back, Rhyddian in hand. Just a single word. “Hi!” The rest is implied- That scrawn, he grows up into THIS. Careful who you try to pick on for being ‘weak.’- Not that this was an intentional evolution. It just kind of happened somewhere in the last two years.

I put the picture on farcebook, making a note of how badass I’m getting.
“Keep the beard,” a friend suggests, joking. I don’t ever lose the beard. I joke back that it’s growing on me.

I wonder about Tinder. Maybe I could experiment. I hate the thing… Shallow, is how I describe it, despite having a profile which I dip into every now and again just to see if anything will come out of it. Never does. I wonder if the badass look will do anything?

It doesn’t.
Just as I expected.

I do, however, spend the next five hours wearing the quiver. Like a child with a new toy.