Chapter 25

BIRTH

3rd of Shabanul Karim 1417

(December 25, 1996)

Pain. A knee in the groin. The ankle twisting on a misshapen rock. The fingers caught in a car door. The toe which bangs against a table leg. The elbow which can no longer swing the tennis racket. The whiplash from a tailgating taxicab. The stomach after spices. The heart pumping through hardening arteries. The liver diluting whiskey. Coughing from blackened lungs. The lower back straining upon a lumpy mattress. The hip which fractures while slipping on ice.

Or is it a splintered paddle against a warm rump? Needles poking a vein. A bone shooting through the thigh. The skull cracking from a lead pipe. A razor slicing the wrist. A bat shattering a knee. A whip stripping the skin. An ax falling on a tender foot. Scissors across a nervous tongue. An intruder ripping the hymen. A hanging from a leather belt. A bullet through the fleshy brain. A cold spike through the eye. Electricity burning the cytoplasm of cells. Fire eating the skin. The cleaver dismembering the hand of a thief. Beating the chest on the holiest of holidays. Shrapnel from a bomb blast.