I remember when I was little, my dad would tickle me.  And it was cool, but wow did it suck after, like, a second.

You know, people will tickle you and it’s all funny, whatever, but I hate it.  It hurts.  A lot.  You get tickled and instantly all you see ahead is death.  You laugh so hard and suddenly you’re suffocating.  And the person who’s tickling you doesn’t even care, they only want to make you laugh but, hey, check this out, you’re crying now because you’re in so much pain.  And yet you’re still laughing because it tickles.  Shit. And you’re trying to tell them, “STOP!  Stop, PLEASE, I can’t breathe.  I CAN’T BREATHE!” but they don’t hear that because now you’re just speaking in short, staccato noises and gasping for air at the same time.  All they see is you getting tickled, when in reality it’s fingers jabbing you and wriggling into your organs, squirming in between your ribs, probably leaving bruises or something.  You’re thinking, “It hurts so bad!  Why can’t they see that it hurts so BAD?!”  Darkness starts filling your peripheral vision, oxygen is just a tease.

And then it stops.  The tickling has ended and you’re looking around like, “Fuuuuuuuck!”  The tickler is smiling and laughing, the day is still going by, everything’s fine.  And you wipe your eyes and grasp your achy sides, and out of nowhere you start laughing again.  At some point you say, “Don’t fucking tickle me! I HATE getting tickled!” while you’re laughing so, of course, the tickler can’t take you seriously so they start laughing.  This pisses you off even more so you scream, “I’M SERIOUS.  DON’T TICKLE ME.”

And everything is all solemn all the sudden.

And the person who was tickling you is like, “Oh come on, it wasn’t that bad!”

And you’re thinking, “It wll never quite fully sink in, will it?”