Water Turned Red

Someone screamed. My blood pounded through me with a cruel rhythm. How could one wondrous day go so wrong? It had started so wonderfully. I could replay it in my head so clearly...

    “Daddy, can we go again?”

    “Yeah, let’s go again, Daddy, let’s go again!”

    My father peered down at us as if we had each just eaten a piece of gum off the ground, “Why would you even ask such a question? Let’s go!”

    And with that, my two sisters, one older, one younger, snatched an innertube from the rack and barrelled up the stairs. I waited until Corinne’s ten year old behind and Kierra’s six year old feet had vanished around the corner before I snatched an innertube myself, with help from my father, and began trudging up those endless stairs. The slide was incredible. It was called the Viper. Of course it was amazing! However, it took so much work each time to simply reach that height.

    We were at one of my favorite places in the world I knew. I was only seven, so my world consisted of my house, the grocery store, school, and Sixflags. I simply loved it, from the colorful, slip-n-slide walkways, the excited shrieks of laughter from some distant ride, the fragrance of churros, salty pretzels, and those irresistable curly fries. It just made a warm feeling blossom inside me.

    And that warm feeling went to go cower in a corner of my heart as I commenced to ascend these torturous concrete stairs for the sixth time. I had already suggested to my sisters twice that perhaps we should try another ride, as this one left me panting, arms dead, when I finally arrived at the beginning of the slide.

    My father scooted me along as I struggled to maintain upright while carrying a neon yellow innertube that was twice my size. Almost to the corner my sisters had rounded. Come on, how could a seven year old be expected to complete this trek six times? Then a small voice inside my head retorted, Kierra’s done it, and will probably wish to go on a seventh.

    After attempting several different forms of holding the innertube and thoroughly failing at all of them, my father said a clearly impromptu statement that had simply popped into his mind, “Why don’t you carry it like a turtle?” What he meant was to have it draped over my back and grasp the handles on either side. I did so, and suddenly my journey became lighter. Up and up I escalated, focusing simply on keeping this cursed tube on my back.

    The stairs became wetter as we neared the top. I was just telling my dad how we were almost there, when the ground slid from beneath my feet as if gravity was frustrated I was beating it, cheating it from seeing me struggle. My hands reached out to catch me, but wait, they weren’t in front of me. They were struggling against the handles they were hooked around, unable to escape, sealing my fate.

    And now I was dead, the pain was so intense it was unbearable. I had to die, no one could endure this kind of agony and live. Sobs escaped my lips before I could stop them. Red, red, everywhere, tears were falling down my cheeks, vanishing among the red. A tremor, a frightened shiver, passed through me as I realized I might not survive. My head was broken open, I couldn’t see, but I could. See, do you see the disgusting, putrid, gum-encrusted concrete stair? Look, Dad turned me over and grabbed my hands, which for some reason seem fused to the handles. Did you hear that? Bump, bump...bump, bump...my heart? It was like a soothing lullaby, muting everything around me. Then, suddenly, the world’s sounds broke through my hearing, and everything was a blur of color and sounds and my dad.

    Then someone screamed. A long, blood-curdling scream. In that one noise was all the sadness, the terror, the grief of the world, and it was beautiful. It was one of the only things that can sneak its way into your heart, your soul, get you to shut up and take in the world around you and realize it’s beautiful. That one, terrible scream, painted a perfect picture in my head, of 9/11, of people going to war, of a son holding his mother’s hand until the last second. How sadness can break a person, or make you stronger. Of the beauty of sadness.

    Before I knew what was happening, my dad had me flung over his back like a rag doll and was sprinting to the first aid tent, vaulting over curbs and decorative bushes to cut a straight path to it. The pounding of my dad’s feet reverberated through me like thunder. The shrieks of laughter were now cries of distress. The vendors harassing people to buy their worthless souvenirs were background noise, a simple hum. I saw every face we passed, my eyes probed theirs unwillingly, I could see the shock, the denial, the disgust as I passed. The glaring neon colors forced themselves into my sight, the treacherous, ominous ground a new danger as my father held my fate in his hands. And then we passed one certain teenage girl. She stared at me, this pathetic little child with a head that was ajar, and said, “Eww, blood!” in such a way that at that very moment I felt unloved and a revolting, unwanted little piece of vermin. Then time resumed, and the people passing showed me their faces only for me to see how disgusted they were with me.

    My dad spoke in a voice that was shaken to the core, “You should probably close your eyes.” And I did.

    “You are such a little trooper!” the nurse chirped for the fiftieth time. I sat there on the crackling white paper, breathing in fumes of cough syrup and antibacterial soap. The grubby, gray ground stood out against the pure white walls and ceiling like a bleeding, crying girl in the middle of a waterpark. The nurse smiled at me with an expression that suggested I was three. I didn’t know which was worse: The overwhelming colors of the waterpark, or being trapped in this room that seemed to have cast all color from it. The gauze being wrapped around my head smelled like absolutely nothing, and compared to the white-washed room, the peach color of the gauze looked colorful. My dad and the nurse had been taking turns telling me how “brave” and “a trooper” I was, but I didn’t understand what I had done that made me so great. Live? Not cry too loud? It didn’t make any sense. However, I kept my mouth shut. She finally finished wrapping the bandage.

    How happy I was to be alive, they had no idea. My dad beckoned to me, and pulled me close. In that one warm gesture, it struck me how fragile life was, and how one moment can sculpt someone’s entire view of the world. From then on, I vowed to be the best I can be to anyone I meet.

    And with that, taking my little sister’s and my big sister’s hand, we went home.