Monday, May 23, 2011

I am so unreasonably angry I am going running, but first, here is some fiction

When I woke up, my whole back itched, and the fervent dreams from the night before hadn't been so fantastical. Nearly the entire length of my spine was covered in oversized goosebumps. A cold shower calmed the need to scratch a bit, but lotion did nothing to help. I laid face down on my bed to air-dry the damp before putting on a shirt. Some of the bumps were red where angry pink lines had been carelessly drawn by my nails. I spent the day and another night in irritable spirits, sleeping and having nightmares.

In the morning, I refused consciousness to avoid recognizing the persistent itching. Except I wasn't itchy. My eyes opened and I jumped out of bed to check my back. Except that I didn't, because I was stuck in the shredded fabric of my former sheets. I screamed. The entirety of my back was covered in short, pointed bristles. The dung beetle of the metamorphosis hadn't been so terrified to wake up a dung beetle as I was to wake up a porcupine. And he wasn't expected to get a summer job. Those were poor choices for a first mental response, but I've always been a little prone to denial. I called my dad before any attempts at reaching a doctor. I was embarrassed, but scared, and that cut through his disbelief. I wasn't in much pain, but he advised that I take some advil and stay put until he got home. I googled for med reports of something similar happening, but empty-handed settled on the wikipedia article for porcupines. They're the third largest rodent, and the "porc" of porcupine is from the French word for pig. Great. I took a furtive pull at one of the lower quills. Definitely connected to nerves. I wondered if it was communicable and that I should probably call my mom. She'd be upset it'd taken so long for me to think of calling her.

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