I remember one time my older sister did something bad and was about to get a beating. When our mother came into the room with the belt my sister fainted on the living room floor and played dead. Me and my other siblings started to laugh because we knew she wasn’t dead. Our mother laughed too. All of us laughing at the same time actually kept her from getting a beating. But now when I look back on the situation, I still laugh, but I also think about how scared my sister really was. She was so scared that she thought that the possibility of her dropping dead would save her from the pain of a beating. In the end, my sister was lucky because my mom didn’t beat her. But I know of other people who tried the same playing dead tactic and their parents still beat them while they were laid out on the floor.

A. King
Brooklyn, New York