Apparently, I Am The Apocalypse
So if John Donne's Elegy XIX, which describes a woman's body as America (the new found land), is taken as a truthful metaphor, my body is currently reflecting the present state of the world. Everything seems to be angry at it. I have, for reasons unknown to me, suddenly become covered in decidedly non-metaphorical wounds.
Put that snort of derision away; my pain threshold would probably make yours go hide sheepishly in a corner to call its girlfriend and complain about its underachieving life. I was an athlete for nearly a decade, and my knees had the skin taken off them by the track so many times that they now resemble badly crocheted skin-coloured beanies stuck onto my kneecaps. I've been spiked, winded, and have on at least one occasion finished a race not realising I was covered in blood. (Had Marion Jones told the press that she took 'the clear' thinking it healed scratches mid-race so you didn't cross the finishing line looking like a post-battle Braveheart, I for one would have been on her side.)
I also deal with a ridiculous amount of paper cuts because of my English degree, do my own sewing, and have an older brother. Nuff said.
This past week, however, has set a new record. I have, at the present moment, no skin on the side of my left foot, a lovely and deep triangular scar in the back of my right hand (with tendon damage underneath), a burn on the back of my left leg, and a healing scratch on my left middle finger. Contrary to what you may be thinking, I have not been in a knife-fight, been mugged, fallen down an inconveniently debris-covered hill or insulted any local rednecks with disproportionately large fists. I simply went about my business, attempting to ignore the increasingly obvious fact that the universe has declared war upon my (blameless, to my knowledge) person.
Add to this the fact that, while I was sitting down in the kitchen generally minding my own business, the large clock decided it would be a great time to inexplicably fall off the wall and break, shattering a large glass vase filled with flowers and water in the process, and you come up with something resembling the Apocalypse. Perhaps there was a Biblical prophecy I missed? One about blue-haired girls with the first name Jennifer somehow bringing about Armageddon? It's possible; my Bible study is what you'd call lax, if you were feeling as if you should be diplomatic about it. (If you weren't, non-existent is equally applicable.)
I think that whenever I venture outside for the next little while I will be wielding a large club, rather like Lister in Red Dwarf as he went to face Death. Metaphysical force or not, if anything else tries to take a chunk out of me I'll give it a personal lesson in what Armageddon will be like. (Actually, forcing it to see that movie several times without pause might teach it the same lesson. Never did a film make life so easy for its reviewers. 'DOOM? Yep.')
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