izzy

I fractured my wrist about a month ago. I was trying to pick flowers from a paperbark. Paperbarks are really slippery, even on bare feet. Smacked right down onto the bitumen. Big whump. Fucking caned. Used to climb everything when I was a kid. Like a monkey or a Mountain Goat. Bare feet have the best grip. I trust my feet, trust my arms to pull me up. I trust my fingers to find the gaps. This arm doesn’t feel like its mine any more. Always trusted this right hand more, preferenced it. Made no secret of the fact it’s the favourite child. Now it is shrivelling, shrinking away from me under the skin. Hibernating in its fibreglass cave. Something taking up residence in the fracture, big bellows of pain blowing out and the crack of my elbow lifting it to nest against my chest.

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sarah

The bone snaps so easy that he tries another. Some half-remembered Christmas dinner bubbles into his brain, and so he makes a wish on the next one. He xylophones his fingers down, presses on two at once and they crackle like a tiny fire. The back of his neck is getting hot. He splays out the wing with both hands and mashes his fist down hard and the noise is like bubble wrap underfoot. His ears are burning. He files away a note for the future: it’s not only people who can scream.

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