Like a Peach

Last Saturday was the day that Ms Punchy boarded her flight to return to India after completing her masters. On Friday night, she sent me a message saying that she'll call me from the airport because mine was the first face she saw when she landed in London Heathrow two years ago, and she wanted mine to be the last face she saw before boarding her flight back home. I thought that was the sweetest, most sentimental thing any friend had ever said to me and although I was up until 3 a.m on Friday night, I kept waking up every few minutes from 9 a.m to make sure that I didn't miss her call.

Surely enough, she called at 10 a.m and I got out of bed as quickly as I could so as to not wake Shane up. However, it was dark in our bedroom and I was quite possibly still half asleep. So when I turned around the corner of our bed while heading straight for the door, I bashed my leg against the sharp corner at the foot of my bed. I muffled my scream by biting into my hoodie because I didn't want to wake Shane or confuse Punchy, and then proceeded to I limp my way across the room. Little did I know that the force of the collision had actually woken Shane up and he was the one who got confused as to why I wasn't screaming in agonizing pain. Punchy, on the other hand, actually saw it happen so there was no scope for confusion.

I spoke to her for over 90 happy minutes, all the while trying to nurse my wound. I knew that it would turn into a blue, green, purple and yellow mess on my skin because I bruise like a peach. At any given time, there are marks and bruises on my body (mostly on my legs) and I usually have no idea how they got there. Sometimes when I carelessly walk into a wall or tumble over the coffee table, the pain of the experience is a good reminder to check for bruises within minutes. My mother is exactly the same when it comes to bruising and growing up, I'd never been a stranger to the rainbow colours that formed on my skin mostly without any recollection of pain. But this time, I had the recollection of pain. This time, the pain was so destabilizing that I had one hand on the part of my leg that was hurting throughout the 90-minute video call. It was so bad that once I got up after the call ended, it hurt while walking. It was so bad that the area had visibly swollen up. SO BAD, that it hurt while pulling my pajama bottoms over it.

Within a few hours, came the bruise. I almost want to say something philosophical like, "When one old friend left, another came down for a visit". But this bruise is so disgusting that I can't bring myself to refer to it as an old friend. This bruise, dear readers, looks like the map of England, complete with Ireland on the top left corner. It's yellow where the water is supposed to be, green where England should be and purple around Scotland and Ireland. I'll spare you some nightmares by not going into further detail or attaching a photograph. But do you want to know the fucked up bit? On Sunday afternoon, as I was getting out of the cab in front of The Bromance's place, I managed to jam the exact same leg at the exact same point against the door of the car. This time, I did scream out in pain and this time it was the cab driver who was confused. It's been three days since the accident and it's still swollen, and it still hurts when my pajama bottoms brush against it. And do you want to know what's even more fucked up? There are two other significantly big bruises on the same leg, close to this one. And I have no idea where they came from.

For some reason I cannot seem to explain rationally, a fear has now set upon me. I'm very conscious of the jutting corners of furniture and cars now and take each step with care. I can't even bring myself to look at the corner of my bed that did this to my leg, lest it jumps at me and bites my head off. I don't want to me standing next to the corner of my bed thinking, "Ummm...who switched off the lights?" because, without the blessing of vision, I'm certain that I will jam my leg against it and go through the whole thing all over again. And that is something I'm not willing to risk, whether or not I lose my head in the process.


Photo credit: Claricethebakergardener via VisualHunt / CC BY-ND