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Show emergency room doors. My fall, though, is the first and the most dangerous. Medically I suffer from a sub dermal hematoma, a swelling of blood against the brain, common after severe head trauma. Specifically, the blood is pushing on the optic nerve, causing my eyes to cross like Wyle E. Coyote's after he has been smashed by a giant boulder. For days I live in a twinned reality, unable to fuse the image and its double. I am only eight, so the fact that I can now see double does not seem that unusual. After all, only a _few_days ag0 ; j fell into a black gap, like asecret door, that before I had not known existed. Upon waking into my second life with the knowledge that the string can be dropped so easily, it only seems fitting that I can see both the thing and its shadow. A secret, a gift, I hold onto my double vision, watching the world multiply, intrigued by my inability to grasp a glass or a book, dizzy from walking up or down stairs. I imagine I'm a magician, that I can heal or walk on water, fly through the air, shape shift into an eagle or a bear. Sometimes, though, I am scared, confused by numbers of things, wishing for stability, wanting to return to the world before my fall. My mother finally takes me to the doctor when she and my father notice my difficulty walking. Given no time to return home and pack a bag, I sit on an orange plastic chair while my mother calls my father at the Pentagon to let him know what is happening. If I spoke with him, I have no recollection of the conversation. My guess is they were consumed with the details of child care, carpools, and the need to make dinner for my brothers. While it is not possibly true, it feels as though I do not see or talk to my father for several days. Washington DC is far away. I rarely see him in daylight, except with wrench in hand bent over a toilet or car engine on the weekend fixing what has 76 |
