Jenn and I were sitting in front of our apartment when we heard a familiar whistle. Our heads turn to see Reggi sprinting to us with his knife and gun in hand. I knew what was about to happen.
Soon I was kicked, shot, stabbed, shoved to the ground, curb stomped, and even spit on. It was fun.
So see, what had happened was…
One night a couple weeks ago a lot of us racers were hanging outside of our apartment dancing and playing with kiddos. Well there was this little boy who was walking around shooting everyone, but nobody would die. They occasionally would react with a word or a sound, but nobody really committed to the role they were given by this little Albanian child. I decided that once it was my time, I would just let it happen. And when the time came I screamed and fell. Skirt and all. Eventually I pulled out my own handy dandy gun (my hand) and shot him with all the onomatopoeias I could think of.. We played like this for a while and somehow morphed into superman, ironman, and spiderman (the only English words he knows) From then on, he was my buddy. I love that we don’t even have to speak the same language to play.
A few days later he ran up to me while shooting his spiderwebs at me. The best greeting yet. Of course I shot a few webs back, but neither of us could really stay long. I spent enough time with him to translate some words and questions. I found out that his name is Regi and he is 5 years old.
So back to the beating. First we saw Reggi walking with his mom and we said hi and he ran up and hugged me. Then he stomped on my hand (yeah, I was confused too) and then he pointed at his brand new shoes. It was so cute to see how proud he was of his new Adidas that I forgave him for showing them off in such a weird way. He then went home with his mom, but came back a little later by himself with his toys ready for another epic battle. (honestly there should be a movie made off of the battles we have)
This last fight was honestly the scariest play fight I’d ever been in though because he didn’t pretend to hit. And one time after I was dead (he also heals me a lot after I die so that he can kill me again) he literally stomped on my face. And we told him no for a lot of different things like that, kicking, hitting, and spitting. Yeah I totally matrix style missed the first spit, but the second came so fast I hardly knew what hit me. It was disgusting and at that point I had to stop playing, but then gave in pretty soon to playing again. At one point he got mad because I told him not to do something and he stomped his way home, but soon came back again a lot nicer and calmer.
I brought out markers and a notebook to draw and the whole dynamic changed. He wanted to sit in my lap like a baby so I picked him up and spun him around. Then when a (beautiful) dog came by, Reggi got scared and hid behind me and Jenn. I had to make the dog go away but it wouldn’t so I distracted Reggi with drawing again and played more until we had to leave. (Jenn even sent me a photo of us!)
I just wanted to share this story because even though this kid literally beat me up, I still wanted to be his friend and see him smiling. It made me understand Jesus a little more when He was beaten and literally spit on. Can you believe Jesus still loved them and us enough to keep going towards the cross? Even after knowing everything about us? What a guy.
