The hat

 Prompt #2 “He couldn’t take it anymore.  This was the last time he was going to let her”

 “He couldn’t take it anymore.  This was the last time he was going to let her” hurt herself.  The scabs disgusted him. Her perfect porcelain skin clawed into thumb-sized pox.  He’s watch her do it.  Her eyes would start to scan their surroundings restlessly.  She’d shift in her sit, cross and recross her legs.  Then, reach her dirty, ragged nails to the nape of her neck and quickly scratch an imagined itch.  She’d pull her hand down and then thoughtlessly reach up again finding a razor sharp edge to her claws and drag them across her chin or hairline with enough pressure to draw blood.  He’d reach to swat her hand down but it was too late. 

She was hooked now, her hand would surreptitiously search her scalp for dead skin to pull away, old scars to reopen, any way to let the panic inside ooze out.  She’d examine her hands.  Unaware of him now.  He’s hit her again, swatting just hard enough to startle her back to reality.  Once, during a movie he’d asked her to sit on her hands and she had dutifully obeyed just until his attention was riveted back to the screen, then she’d reach back up to her face, digging deeper and deeper pits, aiming for arteries, examining old pus with detachment. 

He’d get so mad and she’d cry helplessly.  They even made a pact one hopeful date night.  She agreed that for every time she drew her own blood she’d stick on a huge floppy hat regardless of the time or place. The intention was two-fold to block her access to her most prone areas but also to shame her into breaking the habit.  The next day, he stopped by for lunch and she guiltily let the brim of the hat fall over her eyes as she cried salty tears into the sandwich they were sharing. 

“Don’t you want to stop?” he asked.
“Of course,” she wailed.
“Then, why do you keep doing it.  You know it’s going to get infected.  I listened to a podcast the other day where a girl dug a hole so deep into her own head that they could see her skull.  It was so infected they couldn’t get it to heal.  Is that what you want?”
 She shook her head vehemently.  “I’m so scared that’s what is going to happen.”
“Why?  That’s ridiculous!  It’s your choice, it’s not like it happens without you knowing.  You are doing this to yourself!”  He allowed some scorn to harden his voice.  His eyes flashed and cut her heart.
“It IS like it is happening without me knowing.  Most of the time it’d totally subconscious.  I hate it but once I start I just can’t stop.”
“Of course you can….you’re not a zombie or something.  You can’t stop because you think you can’t.  Mind over matter.”

She rolled her eyes, and scratched an imagined itch by her wrist, she made an X in the skin pressing diagonally with her thumb in one direction and the other with as much pressure as she could muster.  No relief, she scratched absently looking for a more tender spot, an old wound, preferably near some nerves. 
   
   “I’m not really hungry…I don’t feel good.  Do you mind if I go for a quick run?” she begged. 
    “Sure,” he replied. Flicking on the TV.

  She threw on the same thing she’d worn the day before, old sports bra, the Rose Bowl Race for a Cure Shirt and running shorts.  She contemplated the day old socks but didn’t have the energy to go searching for new ones.  She had to get out.  She ignored the smell, pulled them on, dragged her headphones off the dresser in her room and gave Will a quick kiss on the cheek before she scanned her iPod for her running mix.  She walked until she found it, stuck in her headphones, hating the way they felt in her ears.  She began to jog. 

Strabismus

Prompt: Write about a time you tried something new. (500 words)

    Leaves were something new.  Her six year old mind marveled at their meticulous veins and arteries.  The overlapping details stunned her senses.  Until this morning she had lived in a watercolor world, trees were topped with green in the summer, orange and yellow in the fall and suddenly were bare branches in the winter.  This spring she’d seen nothing at all. Dr. Tom had explained the procedure with cartoons, diagrams and even an episode of Sesame Street.
    But nothing had prepared her for the reality of waking up; screaming and clawing at a sharp needle pinning the back of her hand.  Worst of all was the total darkness, she flailed to fight that too but her eyes felt taped shut.  She finally drew a breath, and then another that wasn’t a scream.  She kept breathing counting each minute of this eery eclipse. 
    It had been that way for two weeks.  Her cassette player automatically flipped at the end of a side so with eyes bandaged like a war veteran she listened continuously to the first installment of Prince Caspian, picturing it in her mind to stay sane. After another two weeks the bandages were removed but she wore dark glasses and kept her eyes shut most of the time.  As her mom weaned her off these children began to cry when they saw her at her in the park, backing away as if she had scalded them.  She asked about this and her mom reminded her of Dr. Tom’s warnings.  Her eyes would be bright red- blood shot for a few weeks after the operation.

    Then this morning she had opened her eyes and seen.  There outside her window, drawn in sharp focus hung emerald green leaves.  There were more than she could have ever imagined.  It took hundreds to comprise the whole of even one tree’s foliage.  She took time studying the individuals feeling silly and sorry that for so long she had only known them as a crowd. She looked beyond them briefly and was stunned by the sight of the sky.  The clouds.  The clouds were not flat white things painted on the vault of blue.  The sky was so much nearer than she had ever imagined.  She wondered at the varied depths and distances of the air and atmosphere. 
    She lay her head back on the pillow and resolved to ask for only a skylight this summer.  She knew her dad could do it. He was constantly pulling off other people’s roofs and re-roofing them. Besides she knew the ceiling above her was still damaged from the chimney fire over the winter.  She sighed, imagining the perfection of watching the stars pass overhead as she fell asleep.  Perfection.  Perhaps they also held secrets she had never before known.