Pain

• Michelle Sammut, Grade 10
• Short Story
• 2006

Got no arm and a broken leg. Pain. The pain is pulsating as my hand clutches my blankets and I squeeze as hard as I can, until I hear a rip like a piece of paper which has been roughly torn. Every part of my body is throbbing with excruciating pain and I try to fight it as I feel the tingling numbness run up my left leg. I'm left here in my dull, quiet room feeling sorry for myself, staring at the blank page just inches away from me.
I am so furious with myself and what has happened, I have to make myself let go of my most loved obsession, Art. I have lived for art my whole life; it was the way it helped me express my feeling, a way which no one else could understand, just me. My artworks reflected the way I felt and how my life was and it let other people interpret my unique artworks in their own way. I loved it so much. And in a matter of seconds the one thing I loved and lived for was taken away from me. Having that wonderful gift taken away from me was like taking a rich person’s money away.
My expressions are now containers of meaning; they’re closed tightly and can’t be unlocked. I'm afraid of a lined paper, afraid of how I will articulate myself and what people would think of me. How over protected and traumatized they could be with the thoughts and feelings I now have towards life. I stared at this blank page thinking about how I was going to write using the straight, short biro containing ink instead of a long paint brush with soft bristles dabbed in colourful. I want to roar like a furious lioness protecting its cubs, but for me it was protecting my thoughts and feelings.
Will I find another interest? I know if I really put my mind to it I can, but I am scared of having that interest tragically taken away from me too. I always thought having a journal was for girls who wrote in clichés, "Oh Dear Diary..." in their childish and immature voices. It’s not until someone experiences a disastrous event, when they actually take things for granted, I have just realised how much I use my own two hands and now with one it is extremely hard. My hand was my life. A silver, shimmering tear trickled down my cold, soft cheek.
Many people have ways of dealing with problems in their lives and both the thing I really love and the way I dealt with things were taken away from me.
So I'm left here in my room pouring my feelings out onto a blank canvas, instead of a large canvas full of bright colours, my thoughts without words.