The day started as it ordinarily would have around 9 years ago. I was up at 6 in the morning, the sunlight poured through my curtains on a sunny day at our quaint suburban home in Durban, South Africa. My sister, too deathly afraid to sleep by herself, was snoring away beside me, blissfully unaware of what her little sibling had planned that day.
I sat up on the bed, my feet not reaching the carpeted floor of my bedroom and my mouth feeling unpleasant, somewhat dry and definitely not smelling too great, as mornings tended to do.
I hopped off the bed, feet snuggling into the individual threads of the rug under my feet. I walked out to the corridor, trying to shirk brushing my teeth for as long as possible– parents didn’t like that very much.
My eternally bare feet were now on the hardwood floor of the corridor leading to our living room, dining room and kitchen. My dad was already up, sitting on the counter, drinking some alien, bitter beverage that I’d never tried on account of my unwavering sweet tooth that fought any other flavours. He was reading a book, what book it was, I don’t particularly recall, but it’s safe to assume he was reading something; he’s quite the avid reader.
I sat beside him, climbing the legs of the tall stool that skirted the black marble counter as if they were trees, and eventually, through gruelling physical strain, I placed my bum onto the cool flat wood. My father and I were always up early; he, more often than not, before the sun, and I followed soon after. It offered some quietude and, that was always welcome, I’ve never been one for loud environments, and my mother and sister weren’t very complementary to that idea.
My father offered me breakfast, pancakes; if it was sweet, it was going to be in my mouth despite anyone’s best efforts; you can’t fight a sweet tooth, you just can’t. The morning passed as it usually did, turning on the television and watching whatever came up. It tended to be Disney XD, maybe even a morning Nickelodeon binge; it didn’t matter really, I had my pancakes, I was satisfied.
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The sun was high in the sky, my mother was off to work, and my father and sister minded their own business inside the house. I, and two neighbouring kids, both brothers and two or three years older than me at the time, stood in front of their house, scooters in hand, eyeing the asphalt hill that lined our street, an idea had been stirring in the back of our minds for the past few days, and today, it was time to execute the single most incredible stunt ever done by mankind.
We trudged up the steep asphalt, scooters held tight in our hands. We gained altitude never reached by man on foot with each step, and when we reached the precipice, it was time.
We placed the scooters before us, ready to shred through the space-time continuum with the speeds that we’d reach. Our heartbeats were steady. Fear? I didn’t know her; all I knew is that this hill needed to be tamed, and I’d be the one to do it alongside these two boys, no, warriors.
When the imaginary gun fired, we were off, leaning forward for maximum aerodynamic efficiency; all three of us were speed incarnate. The wind blew through my short hair, and our scooters were steady. Nothing could stop us now. The only sounds were that of the wheels grinding against the hardened tar and the wind in our ears; we were gods, unstoppable forces of nature. We were flames eating the road alive as we blazed through the obstacle, and the wind only served to make us burn brighter.
But how does that old adage go? Fight fire with fire? That’s the one, it would take only similar flames of equal power to dethrone me, and tragically, there were two on my flank.
Our scooters converged, not willingly, but the universe couldn’t allow something of such pure awesomeness to thrive for long. My wheel collided with the one on the scooter beside mine. A split second was all it took to turn my blazing ball of glory into a failure rolling down an asphalt hill. I stumbled forward, my whole body uncontrolled in its descent. I don’t recall what happened to the others, but I imagine they shared mine, one of being torn from the peak of humanity and thrown into the pits of disappointment.
I pushed off the ground, my palms scraping against the tar. My body wasn’t in pain. I was alive and ready for more. I looked up at the two boys in front of me, laughing, willing to try it again, ready to reclaim my honour. But their expressions weren’t that of renewed vigour like mine, their eyes were wide, and their mouths were agape.
One of them pointed, “your chin”, he said, his voice shaking.
“What?” I asked before feeling an unwelcome warmth on my hands: blood. And lots of it.
My hands were practically painted crimson, and the ground was stained with a similar red. The smile on my face vanished, the world around me faded as I screamed, tears streaming down my face, sprinting to my house, to my father, leaving a trail of blood in my wake.
I burst through the door, blood dripping on the floor as I made my way to my parents’ room; my dad was shaving when I shoved the door open, revealing the gaping wound on my chin. My dad’s expression was identical to the kids, just much more panicked. He took swift action, cleaning the shaving cream off his face and running out with lopsided facial hair.
He held a tissue to my chin and phoned my mother, telling her the gist of what had happened and then grabbed my sister, telling her to keep the tissue to my chin while he drove to my mother’s office, picking her up before we went to the emergency room.
The car ride was tense, my father kept peeking over his shoulder to make sure we were okay, and my sister simply held the tissue to my chin, completely stoic, I might add. My chin quaked, my lips always did quiver whenever I cried, and my hands were tightly holding the car seats for deal life.
I don’t think my sister understood what was happening back then. If this happened now (and it’s embarrassingly liable to happen now), she would never have had the stomach to hold the tissue there as it slowly dyed red, the act of changing tissues is beyond her now, and to be fair, I’d prefer her not to do it. She was likely to hurt me more, accidentally, but still not an attractive option.
Eventually, I was seated in a hospital chair. I don’t particularly remember what was happening. My mother sat beside me, looking me in my eyes and smiled as I felt string move around inside my chin along with spaced pricks as needles went in and out of my skin. Stitches, it was a new experience, and fortunately not one I’ve had to go through again– not yet anyway.
For the next few weeks, I had little bits of thread sticking out of my chin, a premature beard as it were, and countless jokes were made at its expense, most of which involved me “looking older now” and the like.
This may sound somewhat morbid, but I hope we all bolster scars from stupid things we did when we were younger. Life isn’t fun without a memento of stupidity forever marking your body– hence, why I want to get a tattoo someday.
Saye Kamal 