[The Man Who Was Blessed]
Fire within my fingers tensed and curled and waited to lash out kindly for the boys skin. Inside my hands waited a blessing for this child that lied before me with his eyes reaching upwards for red and black insides without light and his arms dancing without rhythm. I saw the pain within him shooting up and down his body like passing headlights at midnight with no moon. They strobed past in long lines on the highway from head to toe. Within his head there was a spot of harm so red it bled fluorescent light and seeped into the folds along his gray matter. It pulsed erratically without direction and it called to me with a deep voice of concern. I felt pulled towards it, my arms lifting outwards like stumbling tourists embarrsed of tripping over nothing at all. But this child was small and delicate and unsutiable for holding the waiting fire within my fingers that wanted to burn the spot of harm away. The Light within me was brighter and warmer than suns and would fill this child beyond his point of breaking and then I would be unable to hold back my waiting tears. This boy would break beneath my hands.
The doctor occupied the chair with purpose and the chair was helpless to resist her weight. They sank together and watched the boy wriggle like a pinned butterfly on cork board until the butterfly stopped beating its wings and settled into its death. But the boy was not dead, he was slowing down as his muscles relaxed and uncurled slowly like the unwinding of a spring. His breath found the beat of the watching crowd and matched with their inhales and exhales even though he had no way of knowing they were there watching him.
The crowd made a wide berth around the boy like circumnavigating a car wreck with their heads turning to watch but their forward momentum carrying them along and past until they were far out of sight and no longer thinking of the boy, but a constant group surrounded him so that they boy, if conscious, would be oblivious to their movement and merely focused on the static state of a crowd circling his body, waiting to see if he would continue breathing and twitching and snapping his arms up and down like the butterfly leaving behind the flower, or if his eyes would stop reaching backwards into the red and black darkness inside his head and his legs would cease kicking out like the slow movements of a treading swimmer.
The room gasped and gulped and scratched at suddenly irritated patches of skin on its arms. The room shuffled its feet and blinked its eyes. It coughed and whispered [italics] Is he alive? [italics] as quietly as a room can whisper questions with hesitant answers.
Fire within my fingers tensed and curled and waited to lash out kindly for the boys skin. Inside my hands waited a blessing for this child that lied before me with his eyes reaching upwards for red and black insides without light and his arms dancing without rhythm. I saw the pain within him shooting up and down his body like passing headlights at midnight with no moon. They strobed past in long lines on the highway from head to toe. Within his head there was a spot of harm so red it bled fluorescent light and seeped into the folds along his gray matter. It pulsed erratically without direction and it called to me with a deep voice of concern. I felt pulled towards it, my arms lifting outwards like stumbling tourists embarrsed of tripping over nothing at all. But this child was small and delicate and unsutiable for holding the waiting fire within my fingers that wanted to burn the spot of harm away. The Light within me was brighter and warmer than suns and would fill this child beyond his point of breaking and then I would be unable to hold back my waiting tears. This boy would break beneath my hands.
The doctor occupied the chair with purpose and the chair was helpless to resist her weight. They sank together and watched the boy wriggle like a pinned butterfly on cork board until the butterfly stopped beating its wings and settled into its death. But the boy was not dead, he was slowing down as his muscles relaxed and uncurled slowly like the unwinding of a spring. His breath found the beat of the watching crowd and matched with their inhales and exhales even though he had no way of knowing they were there watching him.
The crowd made a wide berth around the boy like circumnavigating a car wreck with their heads turning to watch but their forward momentum carrying them along and past until they were far out of sight and no longer thinking of the boy, but a constant group surrounded him so that they boy, if conscious, would be oblivious to their movement and merely focused on the static state of a crowd circling his body, waiting to see if he would continue breathing and twitching and snapping his arms up and down like the butterfly leaving behind the flower, or if his eyes would stop reaching backwards into the red and black darkness inside his head and his legs would cease kicking out like the slow movements of a treading swimmer.
The room gasped and gulped and scratched at suddenly irritated patches of skin on its arms. The room shuffled its feet and blinked its eyes. It coughed and whispered [italics] Is he alive? [italics] as quietly as a room can whisper questions with hesitant answers.
