"Stay."
Her mother said.
"Stay
here, don't follow."
The voice a high clear bell, distorted through time, calling over an open field
of long grass.
A toddler
barely able to follow, she stayed. She stayed until she knew it as her name. Then
she started to waddle over.
"I said stay." Mother would snap.
Stay remembered being told what to do. She learned the difference of her taught
name and its meaning. She stayed.
What am I staying away from? She wondered.
Stay was a mystery to herself.
She
stayed still when an accident in the kitchen took her left ring finger at 15.
She cried out without a sound. Air crept through her tightened throat as she
stared, astonished at her finger lying in a pool of blood. Her mind became
fuzzy, seeing her finger unconnected to her hand.
It was no longer her finger, but a finger. It paled
considerably in seconds. She panicked. Stay had no one to call out for, no one
to tell her what to do or how to take care of it. Still scared of the town, she
did the only thing she could think of.
Gas
stove on high and a metal spoon stuck to the flame, she waited for it to glow
orange. She could barely breathe at the sight of the absurd amount of blood dripping
down to a puddle at her feet. She turned her mind off. Without hesitation,
despite the knot in her stomach, Stay thrust the spoon to the nub of
her finger.
A
scream seared out of her body, her body convulsed and shrieked with the pain of
it. Hot. Stinging. Searing flesh. Doubling over, she dropped the spoon. Tears
bubbled up and spilled over, blurring the horrific vision of her hand.
Eyes
squeezed shut, she moaned. Terrified at what had happened and what she did. It
all transpired in minutes. The only sound left was her subsiding sobs. The
smell made her retch: the iron of her blood, the smoldering spoon burning into
the rug it bounced onto. Everything was hot and metal.
Stay
clutched her hand to her chest, curled on the floor lying in her blood. It
cooled and congealed to her side, forming against her, wrapping around her.
Half unconscious
and unable to move, Stay started making plans for a pottery piece in place
of her finger. Bone white with glossy forget-me-nots. An intricate series of
thin leather strips would hold it in place and allow small movements. She would
start making it the next day.
© Ash Huntley
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