Change

4

LATER THAT EVENING, alone in my small apartment, I felt lost. The shock was starting to wear off and I wandered through the place on auto pilot, not really thinking about what I was doing. I took a long shower, cleaning off the grime from the trail. Though I couldn't see anything, I felt like I was covered in sweat and dust. The hot water helped to clear my mind.

It was while I was shaving my legs in the shower that I noticed the pinkish marks I'd shown Bill just a couple of hours earlier, all that had been left from the snake bite at the time, had disappeared. My skin no longer bore any trace of the event that had changed my life forever. I had mixed feelings about that, a part of me thought there should be a physical mark left after such a life-altering event, but another part was just glad not to be reminded of it every time I saw the scar.

I went to bed early, completely exhausted. I quickly fell asleep, but my sleep was restless. I dreamt of snakes, wolves, and snakes that turned into wolves and spoke to me. I woke several times trying to escape the disturbing dreams. More than once I could have sworn I heard something, things that I knew I couldn't possibly be hearing. Voices, conversations in the apartments surrounding mine, footsteps in the gravel that surrounded my building two floors below my apartment.

Each time something woke me, I would hold still and listen closely for a moment, trying to hear the sound again but hearing nothing. It was like the sounds kept disappearing. I told myself I was imagining things and after a while I just ignored whatever had woken me and rolled over and went back to sleep.

Despite having gotten into bed early, I ended up sleeping late the next morning. The restless night left me groggy. I got up and started moving around late that morning, but I wasn't really thinking about what I was doing. I was planning to meet my friend, Isabel, for lunch and then together we were going to go shopping. I wanted to look for some new boots to go with the shorts I planned to wear dancing that evening. My mind was on my plans for the day and what shops I wanted to check for the boots I had in mind as they might be difficult to find in the area.

Absently, I reached into the cabinet and grabbed a glass, I was filling it with water in the sink when it shattered in my hand, splashing water and glass all over the sink and leaving a small shard of glass embedded in my palm at the base of my thumb. All thoughts of shopping gone, I gingerly pulled the tiny piece glass free and dropped it into the sink with the rest of the pieces. I stuck my hand under faucet and used the still running water to wash the excess blood away from the cut so I could see exactly how bad it was.

I wondered briefly if this was something that I could deal with myself or if I needed to call someone for help. What I could see of the wound told me the cut wasn't large, but it appeared to be deep and it was bleeding quite a bit, though not spurting. I decided to try applying pressure to the wound and see if the bleeding stopped. If it didn't after a few minutes, then I'd call someone. I pulled a clean napkin from the drawer next to the sink and wet it so I could check the wound, without pulling any forming scab away, and covered the cut. I pressed my hands tightly together. Using my elbow, I slid one of the chairs away from my small dining table and sat down and waited.

After two or three minutes, I gingerly lifted the corner of the cloth off my palm. Turning my hand until the light hit it, I about fell out of my seat when I realized that not only had the bleeding stopped, but there was no longer any sign of the cut. Unable to believe what I was seeing, I went to the sink, washed the quickly drying blood from my hands, and checked again. Sure enough, there was no sign at all where the glass had cut me. I went into my bedroom where I had plugged in my PCD when I unpacked my backpack the night before and called Bill.

I heard the line ringing on the other end and hoped he would answer. A wave of relief washed over me when I heard the deep rumbling, "Hello?" on the other end. My knees sagged and I sat on the edge of my bed.