Karma Police

She starts taking Tae Kwon Do classes when she is eight, and she loves it. She feels light, and strong, and invincible. She puts her heart on it, but doesn’t really practice much other than flying kicks: she doesn’t want to accidentally hurt anyone, and ultimately, she doesn’t need it. After all, she’s a natural at everything she quits.

She starts taking Karate classes when she is sixteen, a bit too old for her taste. Some things are the same; the only thing you are supposed to do when someone wants to start a fight is run, that is always the golden rule. They also teach her how to fall, a lesson in “rolling with the punches” of the sort, so that she won’t get hurt in any case – never mind that the blonde Sensei will spend the rest of the week trying to trip her to the ground without any success.

(He will trip her ten years later and she will regret forcing him to reveal his feelings for her best friend, but that’s a different story and none of them know it yet – he never will)

The rest of the class is spent with the brunette Sensei taking turns at having one-on-one fights with every new student, level testing. She has thrown a few kicks here and a couple of punches there when he cuts the fight short and chastises her, but she doesn’t understand – she has been taught to never hit her opponent’s back. She nods as she stands corrected, but eventually stops going to class. After all, she figures that if she can’t stay loyal to what she learned so many years ago, there is no use in learning this new stuff anyway.

When the time comes neither three of them run, but they all take different paths. The brunette rebels and the blonde stands, as they both cry like babies. Not her, though. She just rolls with the punches. And she never stops falling.

Sept. 1, 2009.