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5:30 p.m. - 2004-08-27 So here's an exercise I did for my advanced creative writing class: A Number Five and a Bug By Melissa S. Born I lost my sight when I was nine. Less than a year later my hearing left me. I would never really know why. The pain in my head had always made learning brail difficult, and I’d given up when I could no longer hear the words of my teacher. No one had ever explained why I’d one day been normal and the next like this. I think even my parents were unnerved by my afflictions and were unwilling to tell me, or perhaps they didn’t know either. The warmth of their touch hadn’t visited me in months, only the cold hands and prodding fingers of the doctors broke the monotony of my day. At least I think they were doctors, always giving me shots and feeling my head as if that would take away the constant pressure. At least I wasn’t the only child here. Other boys came and went. I could always feel their presence. Sometimes it was a warm glow in the distance or a change in the white noise that made up my life. I never really could see or hear them, but I always knew when someone was there. Though the occupants changed often the number they wore didn’t. I remember numbers from those first few years of my life. I could trace them with my fingers, say them with words I would never hear, but the straight hard lines of mine never changed, a one. It was such a plain number, no curves, no bold circles to break up the lines, just a number one. My neighbors they had slick curves, straight lines and a great girth, they were fives. I often longed to change, maybe even switch from the hard lines of my reality. Being first wasn’t always the best, and this new number five knew that I think. He came to my bedside each day and I’d feel him standing over me. He’d bed down, put my hand on the plastic bracelet about his wrist and together we’d trace his number. Then he’d give me something new to jog my memory and make the pain in my head ease at least for a short while. Yesterday he shared the warmth of a sponge covered in thick goo. The taste he’d given me was sugary sweet and reminded me of old times, chocolate cake with fudgey frosting and birthday parties I’d had before I’d become ill. The day before he’d brought me a jagged paper which felt like velvet with tough lines break the surface. My early memories recognized this as well. It was a fresh maple leaf, all peaks and valleys. He’d even let me touch his head once, which was smooth and hairless and made me smile and laugh. Today number five had held my hand still and put another life into it. The life had several legs, and a long worm-like body that tickled my skin as it moved. It was velvety-soft and wiggling with excitement that probably reflected my own. When he returned the creature to its wire box where it sat on sticks and munched on maple leaves I wished I could hold it longer. A bug was not as good as chocolate cake, but number five had still driven away a little of my pain today. The next day I awoke in excitement for what my friend would bring. I crawled carefully out of bed, wincing at the throbbing just inside my left temple, and took the careful six steps to my friend’s bedside. The sheets were cool and flat beneath my fingers. This number five had left me too. Now my heart hurt in beat with my head as I fumbled my way across the room forgetting to count my steps. The little metal box that had held my friend’s bug still sat on his bedside table. Had he left this companion behind as well, I wondered? I took the small box with me and carefully climbed back into my bed. The cage was still, and I reached inside to be sure the bug was still inside. But the leaves were gone and so was the worm I’d touched only the day before. Only a stick remained with a single hard knob attached to the end of it. The ache of my head returned in force and I left the bug’s cage on my bedside table and cocoon myself in the blankets of my bed until the air tasted stale and hot. I let the days pass in much the same way, buried in my grief and the only warmth I could find. More number fives came and went. Some tried to talk to me, I think. I could feel their occasion and unsure touch. But I shared the hurt in my heart and in my head and my box with no one. Sometime later I awoke from colorfully vivid dreams and turned to confirm the whereabouts of the tin box. Though the darkness I searched the hard wooden top of the bedside table, but the bug cage had vanished. Panicking, I jumped from the bed and searched the floor with my fingers until I found the cold steal of the cage. It moved in my hands, rolled away and I had to find it again. Now I held it tightly as it fluttered and shook in my grasp. I reached instead with care so as not to let the creature out. Beneath my fingertips I felt the trembling beat of satin wings. Number five had left me a butterfly. But a wild think like this didn’t belong chained to this dark silent world of mine. I couldn’t keep it, even though I knew I’d miss him and the reminder he gave me of number five. I counted seven steps to the right and felt for the window, sought out the knob and pushed back the glass to let in the warm breeze. Setting the box on the ledge, I opened it and shook it lightly until I was sure the butterfly had flow free. My head ached in a fierce way. The warm wetness of tears ran down my cheeks as I returned to my bed and something hot fell from my nose. I swiped at it as I folded the blankets around me again. Perhaps they would help me blossom also. I let the darkness brighten to dreams and the pain in my head ran away as I felt cold hands touch my face and my neck and my wrists. For a moment, everything was still and I felt the slight tickling of the butterfly’s feet on my skin. It reached into my soul and called me to follow it out the window into a flight over a world filled with color, sound, no pain in my head and still the number one about my wrist. But I didn’t mind it so much anymore.
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