Knuckles

He knew it wasn't much, and that it was still going to hurt like hell, but he felt fairly confident that this would at least serve the purpose that he needed it for. Mike had taken one of the old, abused pillows that his mom kept as a spare in the garage, folded it over a couple times to try and centralize the remaining cushioning, and taped it up by the top and bottom to the large tree in the backyard. Even with the boxing gloves on, even with the heavy wrappings over his hand underneath the gloves, he knew that it would still hurt to punch. But he really needed to hit something.

The sun was hot and he was already sweating just bouncing lightly on his toes in front of the tree, staring at the pillow, his hands raised in front of his face in a defensive pose, ready both to strike and to block. He had the pillow placed at head level, so that the part just above the tape was level with his his chin, and the part just below was where his forehead was. He could see a face in that pillow, staring back at him, bobbing up and down and back and forth, sizing him up the way that he was sizing that man up.

And then his fists were shooting forward, slamming through the pillow and into the tree behind it. Single jabs, one after the other, coming from the weaker hand that was placed in front. One. One. One.

Then powerful jabs thrown in between them, coming from behind, the power of his stronger side combined with the extra distance and the twisting of his torso, he could feel the shockwave bouncing back through him, could hear the shaking of the tree. The pace of the punches increased as he added in the second punch, the twisting torsion of his body back and forth creating a controllable motion, the pulling back of one hand adding into the motion of throwing out the other. One. One two. One two one. One two one.

A third throw, his leading hand pulled to the side as the straight flew forward. His body twisting harder in the opposite direction of the straight, he pulled his fist in from the side, slamming it vertically into the very side of the pillow. He could see his opponent's face rocking, the hook slipping in past their guard, making it drop to open up space for the second straight. One. One two. One two one. One two three. One two three two. One two three two. One.

He could feel the sweat sliding down his back when his foot fell flat on the grass, his breath heavy but even. He wasn't sure how long he had been punching that tree. Part of the pillow had split from the effort, and feathers were falling on the ground around it. His knuckles hurt to the point where they were numb. He walked away, flicking his wrists toward the ground, the gloves sliding easily off of his hands and hitting the ground. He could see the red through his wrappings. His knuckles were bleeding.

But he felt better.