A Time When I Was Injured

My flesh starts to rapidly disintegrate as the heat of the flattening iron scalded my skin. The pain in my nerves is running through my body faster than DC Comics’ the flash, yet my corporal self just allows the heat to kidnap and murder my skin. Time quickly progresses. Within 2 seconds, a large, elliptical circle creates a round crater in my right arm and near my wrist. The crater, although originally “empty” and deep, quickly fills with a sappy maroon liquid. The liquid begins to overflow like hot lava and my arm transforms into a volcano.

As this happens, I finally react cognitively. My arm becomes the road runner and flees from the hot steel like its Wile E. Coyote or one of his many traps. I whelp in pain as if screaming at the top of my lungs would miraculously seal my wound and stop my bleeding. Water begins to overwhelm my eyes. My levy-like eyelids collapse beneath the emerging tears which begin to flood my face as if it were New Orleans.

My mom finally hears the civil defense siren coming from my larynx and rushes up to see my face drenched and sorrowed like post-Katrina Louisiana.

She lifts me into the air, from my crib, and my three-year-old body flies like a superhero. Blood still spews from my arm’s geyser, yet I feel safe. My life is in my mom’s trusted hands.

She gives me a quick hug, and as she holds me near her my pain begins to evaporate. I try not to cry to let her know that I understand that I’m going to be fine, but I am only three. Crying is the only thing I know to do.