Flimsy Whimsy: Fell

I could peer down and see my lip protruding out past my nose. It was bluish grey and held my attention for a week at least – perhaps longer. I imagined it to be a miniature blue whale swimming under my nose. I moped around the house straining down at it; so much that I had eye muscle strain for another week after the swelling had subsided. No one told me that if you shift your eyes in one direction for extended periods, you harm those little eye-controlling muscles. I didn’t realize this until my daughter had a lazy eye growing up and needed corrective glasses. Maybe it was the reason I got glasses.

It had been Arctic brutal before Christmas holidays. The rink had cracks only frigid could bring. When this happened, we had two choices: go get some water and repair the cracks, or risk getting a blade stuck in one and permanent knee damage from the resulting fall. We never bothered with the water until the rink had more cracks than a broken tow chain shattered windshield. Then we could just re-flood the whole thing.

So there I am, lying on my belly, my upper lip stuck from putting the moist inner side on the cold dry ice. Somewhat better than a wet tongue on a steel pole at that. Perhaps. Since I’ve never pulled that painful stunt on myself I have no experiential knowledge for comparing. But the situation is akin to ripping off the bandage – worse.

The quicker the better. I left some skin on the ice. My sympathetic brothers said they used some of it to fill in the rink’s cracks.

When I came blubbering in tears into the house, my mother greeted me with the “Oh, Dear, did you fall?” question she’d asked many times before. At least this time she didn’t inspect for injuries. The whale had already started enlarging.