Tell Me Where It Hurts

Victoria Arico

"It started out like a meteor shower," I said. "Only not a cool summer evening meteor shower, I mean like red balls of fire slashing through outer space, like in a comic book, with balloons coming out of the sky going 'ZAM!' and 'ZOW!'"

He nodded.

"And then around midnight it was like my body was a whiskey barrel half full of icy sea water and like ten cartoony fish are sitting on the edge of the barrel, fishing. Not warm fish, I mean like fish that were frozen and now they are just thawed, you know how that is? You can touch them so long as they are running under tepid water but otherwise you would singe your fingers with frost? Okay? So anyways, these cold cartoon fish are hanging their fishing poles into the water and they have no bait, it's just their fish hooks in the water and every now and then the barbs stab the side of the barrel and scratch themselves free again. You know what I mean?

"So I got out of bed 'cause I thought maybe it was gas and then all of a sudden it was like all the fish got together and wrenched their hooks into the sides of the barrel and then jumped off the other side with their fishing poles, you know?, hanging all their weight on the line, and it was like, YOW!"

He nodded again.

"Yup," he said. "Sounds like a muscle spasm."

It's so nice to have a doctor who speaks English.

Copyright ©2000 Victoria Arico. All Rights Reserved.

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June, 2000 Issue #50

256 Words

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