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favoritebean_writesA young girl around the age of four awakened early from her nap. Her mom, exhausted from yet another very long workweek, was sound asleep, dearly needing a bit of respite from constant struggle as a single working mother. The child, clearly bored, sought entertainment. Not in her room where her favorite stuffed animals lived, but in the bathroom.
Above the sink, there was a small door. To an adult, it was merely a door to a medicine cabinet, but the child found such a tiny door to be a curious object. She opened the door, perhaps in hopes that a secret world would beckon to her beyond the latch. It did not, but she found the contents inside interesting, nonetheless. Little glass bottles, metal tubes of paste. Dental floss, and clear glass shelves that held these items in place. Perhaps the sun glinted through the window at the right angle to cast a prism of color on the walls of the otherwise boring bathroom, but these shelves caught her eye. So she did as any curious tot would do. She began to dismantle the puzzle pieces that were this cabinet.
She adored puzzles. Except this puzzle would not go back together the way she expected it. In frustration, the child pushed on a prismatic shelf, either to remove it once more, or place it back. It shattered instead, and sliced her right thumb open.
The poor tired mother woke to screams and sounds of shattered glass, and for several moments, fear of severed nerves were palpable. The neighbor, who happened to be a doctor, examined the purple cord, clearly visible beneath the large, deep cut. “The nerve is not severed,” he said, before tightly wrapping the child’s thumb in a bandage. Everyone breathed a sigh of relief, but the cause of that scar was never forgotten.
When she was nine, the girl zoomed up the hill that was 9th Street past her grandparent’s house on a pair of white beat up roller skates, zigzagging in a steady rhythm. Left to her own, the girl learned that the art of velocity was a reckless, but enjoyable art made more fun on wheels.
Turning the corner onto Walnut Street, she cut the corner close. It was a trick she could execute well at the bottom of the hill down on Maple Street, where the walkway was wide and well paved. In front of the Mormon temple on Walnut, however, the sidewalks were in great disrepair. Concrete had been ground to a fine, grey dust, and large pebbles originally set in the ground, lay loose where sidewalk should be.
The wheels of her right skate locked up, ball bearings gummed with concrete dust. She fell hard onto the broken sidewalk, and jagged pebbles on the ground welcomed her as they pierced her skin. By the time she had removed the skate and hobbled back down the hill, her right hand was fairly swollen. But back then, the answer was simply, “We don’t want any trouble with that church. Be careful next time.” And with that, her grandmother slathered the deep wounds with a salve, and covered the biggest one with a band-aid. Then, it was time for dinner.
The girl went skating again the next day, but she avoided Walnut Street, and the temple with broken sidewalks. The scar, a bubble on her palm, was never forgotten.
As time wore on, more scars appeared on her hands and body. Each time, they were mended with band-aids and a little ointment. As adulthood approached, for every external scar that appeared on her hands or legs, an internal scar would accompany. Torn ligaments here, broken bones there. Some were the result of clumsiness, such as the time when she fell face first into the sidewalk, breaking three teeth and bone in the process. Or when she tripped on the cobblestones in London and dented her skull.
Others were the result of being overpowered by stronger sorts, usually people who didn’t take, “NO,” for an answer. Her impalpable fear at crosswalks because an off duty police officer felt that he could cross the double yellow lines and cut in front of the traffic, throwing her body to the pavement in the process. The never healing stress injury was the result of an advisor who forced her to scrap everything she had learned her senior year of undergraduate studies, because that professor hated the former advisor. Or her students. Who knows? That scar on her knee corresponds to the night she was raped by someone she thought was her friend, or that torn ligament was courtesy of shoddy work standards and lack of workers comp. Or the fractured foot that angered a parent because, “I can’t believe you’re actually hurt and that I have to find another babysitter for my date tonight!” But she was hurt, and that parent never apologized for the injury on the job.
Yet for every scar, or break, that little girl somehow always rose to her feet. She never forgot the story behind each scar, but she somehow found herself facing forward again. As time races forward, the rise from these falls are a little slower, a little beleaguered, and very pained. Still, she is here, hoping to reinvent herself before she inevitably falls to the ground for the last time.
This is week 1 of The Literary Prize Fight. The topic was: "It's hard to beat a person who never gives up." Thank you for reading.
Above the sink, there was a small door. To an adult, it was merely a door to a medicine cabinet, but the child found such a tiny door to be a curious object. She opened the door, perhaps in hopes that a secret world would beckon to her beyond the latch. It did not, but she found the contents inside interesting, nonetheless. Little glass bottles, metal tubes of paste. Dental floss, and clear glass shelves that held these items in place. Perhaps the sun glinted through the window at the right angle to cast a prism of color on the walls of the otherwise boring bathroom, but these shelves caught her eye. So she did as any curious tot would do. She began to dismantle the puzzle pieces that were this cabinet.
She adored puzzles. Except this puzzle would not go back together the way she expected it. In frustration, the child pushed on a prismatic shelf, either to remove it once more, or place it back. It shattered instead, and sliced her right thumb open.
The poor tired mother woke to screams and sounds of shattered glass, and for several moments, fear of severed nerves were palpable. The neighbor, who happened to be a doctor, examined the purple cord, clearly visible beneath the large, deep cut. “The nerve is not severed,” he said, before tightly wrapping the child’s thumb in a bandage. Everyone breathed a sigh of relief, but the cause of that scar was never forgotten.
When she was nine, the girl zoomed up the hill that was 9th Street past her grandparent’s house on a pair of white beat up roller skates, zigzagging in a steady rhythm. Left to her own, the girl learned that the art of velocity was a reckless, but enjoyable art made more fun on wheels.
Turning the corner onto Walnut Street, she cut the corner close. It was a trick she could execute well at the bottom of the hill down on Maple Street, where the walkway was wide and well paved. In front of the Mormon temple on Walnut, however, the sidewalks were in great disrepair. Concrete had been ground to a fine, grey dust, and large pebbles originally set in the ground, lay loose where sidewalk should be.
The wheels of her right skate locked up, ball bearings gummed with concrete dust. She fell hard onto the broken sidewalk, and jagged pebbles on the ground welcomed her as they pierced her skin. By the time she had removed the skate and hobbled back down the hill, her right hand was fairly swollen. But back then, the answer was simply, “We don’t want any trouble with that church. Be careful next time.” And with that, her grandmother slathered the deep wounds with a salve, and covered the biggest one with a band-aid. Then, it was time for dinner.
The girl went skating again the next day, but she avoided Walnut Street, and the temple with broken sidewalks. The scar, a bubble on her palm, was never forgotten.
As time wore on, more scars appeared on her hands and body. Each time, they were mended with band-aids and a little ointment. As adulthood approached, for every external scar that appeared on her hands or legs, an internal scar would accompany. Torn ligaments here, broken bones there. Some were the result of clumsiness, such as the time when she fell face first into the sidewalk, breaking three teeth and bone in the process. Or when she tripped on the cobblestones in London and dented her skull.
Others were the result of being overpowered by stronger sorts, usually people who didn’t take, “NO,” for an answer. Her impalpable fear at crosswalks because an off duty police officer felt that he could cross the double yellow lines and cut in front of the traffic, throwing her body to the pavement in the process. The never healing stress injury was the result of an advisor who forced her to scrap everything she had learned her senior year of undergraduate studies, because that professor hated the former advisor. Or her students. Who knows? That scar on her knee corresponds to the night she was raped by someone she thought was her friend, or that torn ligament was courtesy of shoddy work standards and lack of workers comp. Or the fractured foot that angered a parent because, “I can’t believe you’re actually hurt and that I have to find another babysitter for my date tonight!” But she was hurt, and that parent never apologized for the injury on the job.
Yet for every scar, or break, that little girl somehow always rose to her feet. She never forgot the story behind each scar, but she somehow found herself facing forward again. As time races forward, the rise from these falls are a little slower, a little beleaguered, and very pained. Still, she is here, hoping to reinvent herself before she inevitably falls to the ground for the last time.
This is week 1 of The Literary Prize Fight. The topic was: "It's hard to beat a person who never gives up." Thank you for reading.
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Date: 2018-10-09 03:43 am (UTC)