“What are you looking at?”
Jackson was leaning against the railing, looking down on the crowd of people dancing below. The question broke his attention and he looked up at the person who asked it. He wasn’t sure if the guy was talking to him or not, but he was staring directly at Jackson.
“I’m sorry, were you talking to me?” asked Jackson.
“Yeah, I was talking to you! I said, ‘what are you looking at!?!’”
Jackson could tell by the tone of his voice that this guy was looking for trouble. Knowing what the other guy didn’t, he ignored him and turned back to watching the dance floor.
“Hey, asshole, I asked you a fucking question!” the guy bullied.
Jackson turned to look at the guy, their eyes locked. Jackson read everything about the guy in a split second. Sometimes, people like that were MMA fighters trying to pick a fight, but most of the time they were just bullies from high school that never grew out of it. This guy was no MMA fighter. Either way, it didn’t matter.
The two men stared intently into each other’s eyes. Jackson knew the bully was just trying to overcome the fear he kept locked away. That’s what bullies did. Bullies were consumed with fear, and the only way they could release it was by unleashing their fear into their victims. The fear needed a home…but it wouldn’t find one in Jackson.
“It seems fate has brought me to you,” Jackson said to the bully.
“What?”
Jackson didn’t bother repeating his statement, he just continued where he had left off. “You see, I was once just like you; constantly looking for a victim to unleash my fear into.”
The bully’s face scrunched into a puzzled look as he tried to make sense of what Jackson was saying.
“Today, I’m going to release you of your fear’s imprisonment,” Jackson stated as he began walking towards the bully.
The bully began trembling all over as the fear he used to unleash onto his victims welled up inside of him, trapped, knowing it had nowhere to go. Now that the tables had turned, the bully’s “fight or flight” response system took over, and with a bully, there was only one answer. Fight!
The bully took a swing at Jackson with his right fist. Jackson easily brushed it aside with a flick of his left arm, grabbed the bully’s other hand with his right, and twisted his index finger into such a painful position that it brought the bully to his knees.
Jackson looked down into the bully’s eyes. He could see the fear searching for someplace to escape, but there was nowhere to run. He took his other hand, formed a “flick” position with his middle finger, and placed it a few inches between the bully’s eyes.
“I set you free,” he said as he let his middle finger loose from his thumb and flicked the bully right between the eyes.
Thunder, without sound, rippled through the bully’s head, awakening his third eye. All of the lights became brighter, the colors more vivid, the sounds crystal clear. A warm sensation enveloped his body, caressing him with a gentle embrace; like a mother’s love for a newborn child, letting him know that everything was going to be ok, that there was nothing to fear, there was never anything to fear, there was only love.
The bully wept.