Broken

Never have I broken a bone in my body, though there remains the time where a fracture upon my 4ft frame occurred, crowning it as the only exception. Where I fell off the monkey bars and my collar bone broke my fall, leaving me bruised upon a glass bottle of whatever the ice tea craze was at the time, but as an adult I guess I have yet to be introduced to my pain tolerance for anything shy of a complete skeleton to the touch, unlike my pops.
Bubbly and vital; my frail bones never felt so alive. I was six-years-old, driving through the valley with my old man on that sullen, rain-reigned Saturday morning. I was fidgeting with the radio, hoping that perhaps Mc Hammer would come on and serenade me on the way to Ashley and Nicole’s house, but after a few moments, every station had declined my internal request. Silence between him and I was never spoken, I was laughing up a storm talking about Nadia and her dire need to overshadow Hammer’s running man at school yesterday, and just then, the unthinkable managed to overshadow the unthinkable. It was like being trapped inside something concaved where the blue sky waited for a sign to lift me vertically up and away, away from the day that I seemed to have loved. One minute is all it took, an intangible minute of silence, one that has lasted far longer than any minute has ever anticipated.
My old man, I break a smile at the heavenly thought of the handsome cold-hearted spirit in question. I drive through that intersection daily, you know, the one with the split in the road. That same telephone poll, harboring the 18-year-old scar, still struggles to stay intact. The echoes of paradise still chime loudly in my ears, and the lady, whose house my father absentmindedly decide to partially wipe out, still lives hazily in my memory. Like the few slight pleasures I have attained by living, seemingly lasting only countless seconds, the despair never seems to exhaust itself, that cataclysmic sound of death reverberates motionless, prolifically loud in my ears. I remember vaguely, the traces of blood upon my black and purple flannel. As a frightened child, my quiet composure still whole, I froze in wonder, silently for a moment.
I looked over to my left. My father undeniably lies comatose, with his sweet bald scalp, my crystal ball for as long as I can remember, sheltered by the clear glass of what was left of the windshield. A pale face, like one who had just conversed with a ghost of sorts, came running towards my contestably narcoleptic father and I. Her significant other, trying to keep cool, calls an ambulance. Bless her heart; she tries urgently to open my door, and yet another chance at living fearful is upon me.
“What’s your name, sweetheart?” she asked with this sweet look of worry, worry that would compel anyone to save someone.
“Maxine.” I responded, from what my remembrance supplies me, fairly teary eyed.
She grabbed my hand and escorted my tiny frame, to which everyone referred to me as Skinny Bone Jones, my moniker back then.

The sidewalk welcomed a chockfull of uninvited guests, standing silent and chaotic in their massively abundant movement of gawking at a child’s misfortunate ordeal. I’ll call her Antonia, since her name has escaped me. Sweet Antonia, my redeemer for that hour, led me into her yellow, sunlit kitchen, and pulled out a chair at the breakfast nook in the corner, and asked me to take a seat. As I sat down, she began to wipe off the blood from my torn black Levi’s.
“Do you feel alright, my dear?” she sympathetically questioned.
“I, I, I think so.” I stuttered. She brought me a plate of Oreo cookies and I thought to myself, my mother would have never done this, as she placed a glass of milk in front of me.
“Everything will be alright. Your daddy’s going to be just fine.”
I smiled kindly, and I sat fondly of that charming woman, waiting, wishing, and wondering what would become of my short existence later on that afternoon.
My description of lovely Antonia has embarked on to breed dimly into the land of anonymous beings, the place in which the significant ones, who once affected your life, grow fainter into years later. Sometimes, if I find myself on Lassen Avenue, I drive by just hoping to catch a glimpse of her, but who knows if she still calls that humble abode home. If I close my eyes, I can still catch my mother running to his aide on the stretcher, as I stood aside with Antonia, deeply wishing she were my mother.
If only my recollection would serve me better. Did I truly struggle with any tears? I wonder; could I have known then that this would still impale my daily endeavors, 18 years into the future? Was this to mark the end of the eternal neglect and ruling of the iron fist, which paradoxically, I still loved wholeheartedly? If these things, this flash of my youthful remembrance, have played a part in my chronic illness, why then can I not bid them a tender parting? Perhaps by allowing justice to the past be served, then it would mean no longer would the warmth of yearning for a goodbye, radiate above me, keeping me ill yet tenderly sheltered in this cruel world, sunlight hours in and calendar days out, as I hunger for something more, more than what my eyes have seen, more than this, more than all of this.