“Talk about the word, but don’t use it” drabble!
Imagine a quiet household, in the dead of night. A man, stout and scruffy in appearance, with tie disheveled after the long day of work, sound asleep in front of the TV. A man, a father, neglecting to care for his toddler of a son.
The child, round face, full head of black hair, sat in rapt attention, bright blue eyes wide open, fixated on the screen before him. A film was playing. A brutal, uncensored, and explicit slasher film. The kind of film where “sympathetic characters” are little more than meaty cardboard cut-outs, made to be ripped apart for viewing pleasure.
And every time that the hockey-masked serial killer swung his sinister blade down? Every time he coated the world around him in a beautiful woman’s crimson bodily fluids? Every time that a dying scream overrode the (decidedly subpar) soundtrack?
The toddler laughed. The toddler beamed. Pure innocence, directed at glorified depictions of violence.
This is Travis Touchdown’s earliest memory.