Wordmongers' Masque
I sat up on the little roof garden and had a smoke. The late afternoon sun pounded the rooftops and slanted between the close-set buildings. I heard children playing on a distant rooftop and I thought about how my mother had once caught me playing on the roof when I was eight.
I remember how pissed off she was -- not because she had been inconvenienced or anything -- but pissed off because, she said, I could have been hurt very badly.
She trembled as she stood at the foot of the rickety trellis -- the one I had used to make my big climb to the roof and made me promise to never, never do that again.
I remember how tempted I was to go back on my promise. The roof was such an adventure. Things looked oddly smaller from the roof's vantage point, and that was something that interested me -- that and how easy it was to look into everyone's backyard from the high angle.
But I had promised, and that was that. I'd never go on that roof again.
Now, I watched three boys playing on the rooftop. two older boys were trying to lose a younger boy who was following them around, doggedly.
As I was about to put out my cigarette, I heard a thud, some metal rattling then a shriek -- must have been from the youngest boy. In a few moments, an adult was up on the roof, along with the older boys who had now gathered around the younger one.
He was really hurt. His cry had an unnatural pitch to it -- and did not have the petulant quality of a child not getting his way. He was, apparently, really hurt.
Then I remembered the spiral of pain in my own left arm -- remembering a time I had fallen from a high place and broken my arm.
I was told my cry had a different sound to it, and I vaguely remember how I tried to stay above the pain because if I explored it, the spiral sucked me down.
I listened to this little boy sobbing, trying to get his breath. I figure that was what he was trying to do -- keep above the pain so the spiral did not drag him down.
I went back to the office -- back to work, but now I had a new memory to follow. If I wanted, I could now follow this memory down the spiral and remember the feel of a broken bone.
Could this have been what my mother was so afraid of?