On the Fantasty of Breaking Your Own Legs

On The Fantasy of Breaking Your Own Legs

Here’s the thing about pain, if you figure out a way to remove it,
then maybe, you won’t have to worry about it anymore.  

• Welcome to the almost end of your journey!
• The only thing that has carried you so far are your legs.
• The weather has been hot. You’ve been seeing mirages in the distance.
• Not everyone still has their legs, turning jelly under the scorching heat.
• But because you have yours, you’re expected to keep moving forward, despite the heat and thirst.
• (In your dreams, it’s the sandstorm that swallowed your family that haunts you.)

Benefits of Breaking Your Legs?

1.     Your muscles hurt all the time – It’s Sore.

2.     If it’s pain, then it becomes a tangible sort of pain.

3.     Pain that everyone can see. Loss that is shared.

4.     You won’t have to walk for a while, expectations of said action killed.

5.     The perfect excuse to stumble and stay on the ground.

•  Such thoughts plague your mind, how two appendages ended up being core to survival.
• (There’s the phantom weight of your mother on your back. There’s the phantom ache of her weight on your arms.)
• Tears well up in your eyes but you try to laugh it off. A mirthless laugh tears out your throat. The broken sound earns a few wary and disgusted looks from other travellers around you.
• “The heat must have gotten to this fellow’s head,” you hear a whisper a meter or two away from you.
• And maybe it did. 

Things to Consider:
§  What would be the best method to break your legs?
§  How painful would it be?
§  How long would it take to heal?

•          You really, really want to break your legs.
•          They’re a privilege you no longer wish to have, even if they have carried you so far.
•          (There’s no point in having them anymore.)
•           Once, you saw a man who looked at your legs enviously. He was on the ground, but then another legless man crawled over to him, passing a flask of water.
•         Then suddenly you were the envious one.
•         You miss community, you miss having someone to talk to. Your thoughts are loud and you’re always alone with them.
•          If you ruined your legs, you’re wondering if someone would pick you up from the ground, steady your steps.
•         You miss being taken care of. You miss taking care of someone else.
•         In the middle of your reverie, you notice a small child on the side of the road, next to a rotting corpse. You wrinkle your nose at the stench it produces.
•          Still, you approach the child. You kneel to eye level and he flinches back, keeping the corpse out of view.
•          “Hey.”
•          Your voice is raspy from disuse, the child bares his teeth in response.
•          You ignore the hostility, cocking your head to the side.
•      “Don’t you want to reach the citadel? A skeleton won’t get you there.” 

Things to Consider:

§  What are the stages of decomposition for a human body?

§  What are the features of a corpse under the desert sun?

•          The child lunges at you. Unsurprising, since the corpse probably belonged to someone dear.
•          If you could, you would trade places with the corpse.
•          His punches are weak, it’s easy to hold him by the wrist as he struggles.
•          Eventually his energy wears out, eyes fluttering shut.
•          You take one more look at the corpse, giving it a slight nod.
•         If these legs weren’t meant to carry yourself                                                   Then maybe they can carry someone else.