Flip Book

As a kid, I loved making flip books. They were all I did in art class, whenever I had the chance. I worked really hard on one particular flip book that was around 50 pages long, I guess. It had a simple stick figure that would walk onto the page, wave at me, and just simply walk off. I looked at it dozens of times on the day that I made it, but eventually I got bored. I mean, once it was finished, t just wasn’t something that can keep someone entertained for long. I tossed it under my bed and never gave it a second thought.

A few months later, I was cleaning up my room and swept the stack of paper out from under the corner of my bed. I couldn’t quite remember what it was.

I flipped through it once more, as I was flipping, I noticed that the pages hadn’t worn out at all. I flipped through again. The little stick man walked onto the page, but this time he didn’t walk off. Instead, a second stick man walked on with something in his hand. He walked up to the first stick man and whacked the poor fellow on the head. The first stick man fell and the second stick man swung to hit the first stick man again. And again. And again.

Blood ran from the first stick man’s jagged body. It looked like nothing more than a smeared pencil stain. The killer stick man proceeded to bend down and tear apart the first stick man’s body, limb by thin limb. He bent each line into letters and set them up upon the page to form a single word. Then grabbed the base of his own round head and tore it off, followed by his legs, and then one of his own arms. His zig-zagged body parts formed a second word. What I read made me burn the book.

“You’re Next.”


Kelly Avila from Tyler,TX