Author: Jan-Ives Campbell

I'm a writer. I have published novels, graphic novels, and children's novel. Check me out on Amazon.

Choose Your Own Adventure

You are a heroic knight, armed only with sword and shield you stand against a rampaging fire-breathing dragon that threatens to destroy your home and family. What do you do?

I am a firm believer in personal choice. Although many events in life happen to us and are beyond our individual control, there are frequent options that we can pick from that dictate the path our lives will take. The choice can be as seemingly inconsequential as which road to take on the way to work, or as important as the choice to fight or run, but those choices can have life-or-death unforeseen consequences. I am often reminded of the Choose Your Own Adventure books I read when I was twelve years old. The books placed the reader in the role of a variety of characters such as spy, race car driver, or dragon slayer. Never did any of those stories place me in the role of a thirty-seven year old, out-of-shape man trying to protect his girlfriend and her toddler son from her own brother hopped up on pain killers and looking for a fight.

I am dressed in jeans, a t-shirt and a pair of leather gloves and I am standing in the parking lot of my girlfriend’s condo in mid-January, unprepared for the weather and not expecting to be involved in a fistfight. It hasn’t snowed in a while and the previous snowfalls have been plowed into neat but dirty piles out of the way of traffic and parking spaces.

My girlfriend’s younger brother, Rex steps out of the passenger’s side of a pickup truck and finds me standing there in the way of his destination. Tim, a tall but portly man of approximately my age gets out of the driver’s side and makes his way slowly but determinedly over to Meryl. I understand why Tim is attracted to Meryl. She is a year older than me, but she is stunning. Tall and blonde with a perfect shape, and a confused and helpless demeanor; she has all the ingredients that even a smart guy like me fell for.

I am a roadblock with crossed arms in Rex’s way. I say, “Get back in the truck and go somewhere else,” but all with my eyes. Rex looks at me slack-jawed, hardly believing I would obstruct him. He is not as tall as I am, but what he lacks in size, he makes up in other areas; overall physical fitness, youth, and a circulatory system laced with pain-reducing prescription medications. These facts give him the edge that any Las Vegas bookie would call a ‘lock’.

What my adversary doesn’t anticipate is my proven record of being able to take a beating and survive.

Meryl, has informed me that Rex had stolen money and prescription medications from her when he has stayed with her, in the past. She received a call from her friend Tim, indicating that he had just been released from jail for a crime he committed earlier that night and was looking to stay with her.

“Turn around and go home,” I say, standing my ground. “You can’t stay here.”

“What the…fuck you!” comes the clever response from the thug. “Why not?” he says, laughing dismissively at me.

“Why?! Why?! Because you just got arrested for stealing from Hannaford’s and Tim said you’re high on oxy,” I reply full of condemnation and judgment. Meryl’s friend Tim, a soft-spoken, weak-willed man who was continuously hanging-on, waiting for our relationship to end, waits in the shadows. The symbolism is lost on me.

-If you want to stand your ground and possibly fight a 22 year old drug-addict, turn to page 15

-If you decide to let your girlfriend decide for herself go to page 16

I frantically turn to page 16 and am alarmed at the result of my decision.

16) You decide that it would be best to back away and ask Meryl what she would like to do knowing damn well she will let her druggie brother stay with her and steal money from her wallet and prescription pills from her medicine cabinet and endanger little Luke, whom you love more than anyone you have ever loved. However, you were in a car accident over ten years ago in which your brain suffered damage to your frontal lobe preventing you from feeling the emotion of fear. Due to the fact that you lack the flight part of the fight or flight instinct turn to page 15 and face the guy high on pain reducing drugs who is fifteen years younger than you. Good luck!

In a flash, he is on me. I am unprepared for his sudden attack and he pulls me to the ground and starts to punch me in the body and head. I decide not to fight back, because even though the punches are raining in on me I feel that my girlfriend, or her friend Tim, will pull my attacker off me any second now and talk some sense into him. I wait as he grips my head in his very strong hands and slams it against the cold pavement of the parking lot that has been chilled by the January air.

I did not anticipate the situation being resolved in this manner. I thought he would back down when faced with my stern and heroically unwavering demeanor.

The beating continues. Help does not seem to be coming.

-If you want to survive you had better start fighting back! Grow a pair and turn to page 21.

-To beg for mercy or lay down and die, go back to page 1 and start again.

I do not wish to die here.

21) From the ground, you push Rex off and get into a position where you can land some punches of your own. Wham! Wham! You punch him twice in the ribs. He continues to struggle and attempts to get you back in a vulnerable position. You decide that punching him in the balls, an effective, if not manly attack, will take the fight out of him. BAM! BAM! BAM! Three solid strikes to his softest part and you roll out of the melee and to your feet.

Rex and I rise rapidly and he stomps away from me. I am amazed that he is still functioning, much less on his feet, considering the punishment I have unleashed upon him. I stumble bloody over to Meryl who stands confused in front of a crowd of people who have ventured out of their condos and into the parking lot where our battle is taking place. The crowd resembles spectators in a gladiatorial arena in ancient Rome. They laugh and carry on as if this were an event staged for their amusement. Meryl is just as useless.

I turn to face Rex who is advancing on me again. This time he has a set of keys spaced between the fingers of his clenched fist creating a more deadly attack. I hear Meryl scream as I back-peddle away from his repeated wide swings at my face. Like some paraplegic ninja, I throw a half-hearted kick that does not find its mark nor does it force him back.

-Seriously, dude. No one is helping you! Turn to page 35 to get in your friggin’ car and drive away.

Surrender and retreat are options, but they do not occur to me.

Rex is pacing back and forth on the other side of the parking lot. I imagine steam rising off his body as he punches his fists in rage. I yell out to the crowd, “Did anyone call 911?!” Someone mumbles an unconvincing positive reply.

“You better hope they come soon, because I’m gonna fuckin’ kill you!” Rex yells at me from across the lot.

-If you want to wait for the police, go to page 32

-If you want to respond to his threats, go to page 33

I have taken a beating. Now it’s time to give one.

33) You stride determinedly toward the injured man as he raises his right arm to attack you. With your left hand you bat aside his fist and land a solid blow of your own on his unprotected nose. It collapses in a spurt of blood and crunch of cartilage.

He does not fall.

Instead he comes at me with fists flying. Only the swirling blue lights that are the harbingers of help put an end to the fight. A disappointed sigh escapes from the crowd like the last gasp of a dying animal and they return to their homes.

There are many choices I could have made after the police questioned all those involved in the fight and the witnesses. As the cops try to work out whom they should arrest they jokingly say they should arrest whoever is least beaten-up, because that person is likely the instigator of the fight. We both look beat up. I am covered in blood that is all my own. My skull and face are lacerated and bleeding. Rex’s nose is broken and his face and shirt are soaked in his own blood. His internal injuries are invisible and he cannot feel them.

I hold my breath, not sure whom Meryl and Tim will accuse or whom the police will think has taken less damage.

My luck holds and the police take Rex into custody. Later, they take him to the emergency room for internal bleeding. Had those less-visible injuries been more evident perhaps I would have been the one incarcerated.

The one life lesson I learned from those Choose Your Own Adventure books was that it is possible to make all the right choices and still lose and often the unexpected option leads to defeating the proverbial or literal dragon and getting the treasure.

There was no treasure in this particular story and I didn’t feel like I had defeated any dragons. For the months that followed, the princess I was trying to save instead blamed me for fighting and injuring the dragon. I was trying to be the hero, but instead I was the villain.

Often, as in real life, there is no way of winning and the right choices are not always the correct ones. The great thing about the books was the ability to take a different path if you didn’t like the ending you got the first time.

I wish real-life had the same option.

                               THE END

Pain of Love part 1

 A Game of Thrones story

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“Can we stop? I want to hear the story,” the boy said, looking up expectantly at his father. The six-year old child looked minuscule compared to the gigantic bear of a man. The boy turned and he saw the look on the man’s face, hidden as it was under a scraggly red beard. It was a look that said that they were in a hurry. He was ready, though, and the happy ear-to-ear smile on his face was enough to shatter his father’s grim demeanor. The big man let out a grunt and with his giant paw tousled the boy’s already messy brown curly hair. “Okay, Grayne, but let’s not diddle-doddle. Your mother is waiting.”

Grayne let out a shriek of happiness, his troubles temporarily forgotten. He ran to sit in the crowd of boys and girls whose mothers stood around the perimeter. He found an open space and before he sat down he took a moment to find his father in the crowd so he could give him another toothy smile. His mother had told him many times, “Let him see all your teeth. He will never tell you no when he can see the back teeth.” Grayne saw the big man waiting. He stood at least a foot taller than the tallest woman in the crowd. With his arms crossed, and a grim countenance on his face, the women gave him extra space. Grayne looked past his father with dread at the horizon, for the grey clouds indicated a storm was coming. The boy was long ago weary of the many storms of a summer that was in its death throes, but had not accepted its own demise. The smell of dampness filled his nose.

Grayne smiled and made himself as comfortable as possible on the hard ground. A tall figure in tattered black robes stood on the flimsy stage. The boy could not determine the shadowy figure’s gender under its dark billowing robes. Even when it spoke, the voice was a whisper that carried on the wind and gave no indication of the gender of the speaker. A blast of cold wind suddenly stormed through the crowd stirring up dirt, dust and dead leaves on the ground and those not strong enough to hold onto the trees. The people collectively pulled their clothing closer against the storm’s windy harbinger that swept through them. The children gasped and shivered in response to the piercing gust. Only the black-robed performer seemed unaffected by the icy chill of the coming storm.

“Who can tell me of The Seven?” the robed, seemingly genderless storyteller asked the gathered throng of youngsters with only a whisper. “Can any of you name even one of the seven new gods who hold our destinies in their merciless hands?” the hooded storyteller asked as it pointed a long bony finger at a boy with blonde hair and a dirt- stained face. The boy let out a gasp and was silent.

Grayne’s father had many times told him of the new gods, and the boy was eager to show off his knowledge. The robed actor continued pointing at various children in the crowd until Grayne shouted, “The Maiden!” His voice wavered and cracked, but he made himself heard over the wind.

“Correct,” whispered the shadowy person. “What are the others?”

Grayne looked back at his father, hoping for some recognition for his correct answer, but instead saw the giant shifting uneasily from foot to foot. Grayne returned his attention to the performer. He listened as the children named each of the gods that made up The Seven. They named them all as the hooded storyteller coaxed the names from them; the Maiden, the Father, the Smith, the Warrior, the Crone, the Stranger, and the Mother. The mention of the Mother-Above caused the boy to think of his own mother. She had fallen ill and had lingered in a state of confusion for almost two weeks. Her body wasted while she seemed to have no concept of her surroundings. A medicine-man had taken her in, but each day she showed no signs of recovering from her mysterious languishing malady. Grayne felt helpless and wished the gods were real and that prayer could save his mother. “The Gods are cruel,” his father had always told him.

Grayne watched with nervous anticipation as the storyteller moved though the field of seated children, telling a story of the Seven. He half-listened, his thoughts were not where he was, but where he was going. Only when the storyteller neared Grayne did he return his attention to the performance. The grim entertainer strode over and around the seated children determinedly until he stood above Grayne. For an instant the cold wind seemed to die. He looked up, but all he saw were black robes of the tall storyteller. Suddenly, the boy was staring into the shadow-filled hood of the figure as it bent down before him. He let out a little squeak like an injured mouse as the hooded figure spoke to him with words that felt like sticky cobwebs, and breath the smelled like wet earth.

Grayne dizzily listened to the grim figure’s words for what seemed like hours, barely hearing the shrieks and screams that erupted from behind him. In a blur of motion and with a crack of bones, the cloaked figure was cast aside as if he had been smashed by a charging bull. His father was beside him and before Grayne could react he was thrown over the man’s massive shoulder. The big man crashed and stomped his way out of the crowd.

Only when they were safely from the crowd and what seemed like miles away did his father gently remove Grayne from his shoulder and set upon his feet. “Are you okay?” his father asked the pale and shaken child as cold raindrops began to fall.

Grayne nodded without a word. The wind had stopped, replaced with a hard rain that chilled them both to the core.

“What happened? What did he say to you!?” his father asked the shaken boy more demandingly than he intended. He closed his eyes and tried to console Grayne by saying, “It’s okay, son. Whenever you’re ready.”

Grayne licked his lips and looked silently at his feet.

“Boy, it’s okay,” his father said calmly. “You don’t have to say anything.”

The two walked in silence, hand in hand for several miles making their way from the small village to the darkening woods, before the boy spoke. “Father, the storyteller…said I was cursed.” Grayne paused to lick his dry lips and he continued. “My curse is my strength. I will outlive everyone I care for, and my true suffering will come not from the pain of my injuries but from my ability to endure them.” The sound of the rain pounding furiously through the trees was the only sound until Grayne asked, “What does that mean?”

His father’s grip tightened on his son’s hand. The man closed his eyes then sucked his lips in over his teeth as he took a deep breath. Quietly, the gargantuan man stopped at a hollow log. He pointed at the log and nodded at it, and the boy crawled inside without further questions.

His father stood outside as the torrent soaked him for many hours. Grayne fell asleep listening to the rain tapping against the bark of the log and dreamed of his mother.