Flash Fiction: “It Hurt Itself in Its Confusion” by Emily J. Lawrence

Padagator was the name of the Pokémon my brother invented.

“Fans can send in cards they draw and they get to be real cards,” he says.

We ride home from Wal-Mart in my stepmother’s car. Water type: 90 HP. Attacks: Scratch (a classic) and Chlorine Eyes. Temporarily confuses opponent: 50 HP damage. Padagator is drawn on the back of an index card. I slip the trimmed card into the vacant tape cassette case I use to protect my holographics.

He flaps, “We’d get paid, too!” He’s asking me, do I want to? I check the rearview for my stepmother’s eyes.

"I guess," I say, kicking grocery sacks, a noise to guard my enthusiasm.

My brother’s tried to replicate each detail of a Pokémon card with his colored pencils. My stepsisters run fingers through their curls, lick their lipstick. I scratch the zit at the base of my scalp.

“Are you sure they’ll make it real?” I say. “Probably not,” I say. Then, “Sure…I mean, if you’re right that they’ll really pay us.”

My stepsisters collect, too, but they’re the type who’d trade their holographic Raichu for a bag of Flamin’ Hot Cheetos. We’re the type who’d trade the Cheetos. We’re a type; they’re a type. I try not to be a type at all, but only hurt my brother in the confusion.

Years later my brother and I don’t talk much. He drinks and tries to please everybody. When he can’t, it’s “Fuck all!” His enthusiasm has become cussing and tickling his girlfriend behind the closed door. I buy Pokémon Green, hidden in a box of Gameboy games, “$1 each, Buy Two Get One Free!,” from the store where he works. He rings me up, chuckles, nostalgic. I choose you, I almost say. But that’s dumb.

I’d like to say I still have the Padagator card, still pinned in the cassette case by the cross-shaped prongs, in my dresser or even fallen behind my bookcase, but I don’t. 


Emily J. Lawrence is a bruised paper bag marked "Surprise" sitting in a dollar store. She broke into herself years ago and what she pulled out is what you read in her stories. These can be found in A Cappella Zoo, Hawk and Handsaw, Relief, Glossolalia, and Pif Magazine. She is an assistant editor at Literary Laundry and a reader for A Cappella Zoo. She maintains a blog called “Buys Paper, Writes on Napkins.”