A Story About a Story

I wanna tell you a story – about a story. And it's about the time I discovered that most adults have no idea what they're talking about. It was the middle of the summer, when I was 12. And I was the kind of kid who was always showing off. I have seven brothers and sisters, and I was always getting lost in the crowd. And so, I would do practically anything for attention

So, one day I was at the swimming pool, and I decided to do a flip from the high board. The kind of dive when you're temporarily, magically, suspended mid-air. And everyone around the pool goes "Wow! That's incredible. That's amazing!"

Now, I'd never done a flip before. But I thought: "How hard could it be? You just somersault and straighten out right before you hit the water." So I did. But I missed the pool. And I landed [THUNK!] on the concrete edge. And broke my back

I spent the next few weeks in traction, in the Children's Ward at the hospital. And for quite a while I couldn't move or talk. I was just sort of... Floating. I was in the same trauma unit with the kids who'd been burned. And they were hanging in these rotating slings, sort of like rotisseries or spits. Machines that would turn you around and around. So the burns could be bathed in these cool liquids

Then one day, one of the doctors came to see me, and he told me that I wouldn't be able to walk again. And I remember thinking: "This guy is crazy. I mean, is he even a doctor? Who knows?" Of course I was going to walk. I just had to concentrate. Keep trying to make contact with my feet, to convince them – will them – to move

The worst thing about this was the volunteers, who came every afternoon to read to me. And they'd lean over the bed, and they'd say: "Hello Laurie." Really enunciating each word, as if I'd also gone deaf. And they'd open the book. "So, where were we? Oh yes... The gray rabbit was hopping down the road, and guess where he went? Well, nobody knows. The farmer doesn't know... The farmer's wife doesn't know..." Nobody knew where the rabbit had gone - but just about everybody seemed to care

Now, before this happened, I'd been reading books like A Tale of Two Cities and Crime and Punishment. So the gray rabbit stories were kind of a slow torture...

Anyway, eventually I did get on my feet. And for two years I wore a huge metal brace. And I got very obsessed with John F. Kennedy. Because he had back problems too. And he was the President

Much later in my life, when someone would ask what my childhood was like, sometimes I would tell them this story about the hospital. And it was a short way of telling them certain things about myself. How I'd learned not to trust certain people. And how horrible it was to listen to long pointless stories. Like the one about the gray rabbit

But there was always something weird about telling this story, that made me very uneasy. Like something was missing. Then one day, when I was in the middle of telling it, I was describing the little rotisseries that the kids were hanging in. And suddenly, it was like I was back in the hospital. Just exactly the way it had been. And I remembered the missing part

It was the way the ward sounded at night. It was the sounds of all the children crying and screaming. It was the sounds that children make when they're dying

And then I remembered the rest of it. The heavy smell of medicine. The smell of burnt skin. How afraid I was. And the way some of the beds would be empty in the morning. And the nurses would never talk about what had happened to these kids. They'd just go on making the beds and cleaning up around the ward

And so the thing about this story – was that actually I'd only told the part about myself. And I'd forgotten the rest of it. I'd cleaned it up, just the way the nurses had. And that's what I think is the creepiest thing about stories. You try to get to the point you're making – usually about yourself or something you learned. And you get your story, and you hold on to it. And every time you tell it, you forget it more