Pain: Part One

Something long and sharp, maybe a piece of glass, sliced through the tender skin on the bottom of Charlotte’s bare foot, causing her to give a tiny cry of shock, which was immediately lost in the wind.

She had been wandering up and down the beach searching for sea-glass, her long dark hair whipping across her face in the salty air. Sam, laying on a towel a little ways up the beach, hadn't looked over in a while. In his pocket was the diamond ring he planned to present her with in just a few minutes, and he was imagining what her reaction to it would be.
        Shock, probably. Tears, maybe laughter. Sam had known Charlotte since she'd been 16, the younger sister of his college roommate. He had watched her grow into a woman, been on the phone with her when she was accepted into her dream university, held her sobbing in his arms for hours after she had accidentally run over her childhood dog. He knew her reactions to most things, knew each variety of laugh she had and what would prompt it. Knew what movies were sure to make her cry, what gifts she would want that she herself didn't even think to ask for. But for some reason he could not picture what her expression would be when he asked her to marry him. He continued to imagine possibilities, each of them ending in "yes."

Red liquid began to bloom around Charlotte’s foot in the water, and she watched it for a few moments, dizzy and momentarily incapacitated by surprise. The freezing ocean had numbed her foot a little, but the sight of her own dark blood staining the water caused her to lose her breath. She felt as if she were suddenly capable of thinking several thoughts very clearly all at once, and one thought was that the blood looked dark and sinister, sliding into the clear water in a dense fog. Slow and dark and evil.

After a few moments of this silent observation, Charlotte sat down in the shallow waves, and Sam finally looked over at her. “What are you doing?” he laughed, “You’re going to get soaked.”

Charlotte looked up at him blankly. He frowned, shading his eyes from the sun to see her more clearly. “What’s wrong?”

“I cut myself,” Charlotte said in a surprisingly calm voice, “I’m bleeding.” “Where?” Sam stood. Charlotte lifted her foot and watched blood stream from it like a waterfall, mixing with the salt water. It hurt worse in the air- a cool breeze hit it and Charlotte began to cry, but before she could immerse it again in the freezing water, Sam was there, lifting her up. “It’s okay, we’ve got a first aid kit. We have everything we need. You’ll be fine.” Sam carried her over to his towel, setting her down gently where he’d just been laying.

Sam was a doctor. Or at least, he would be in a few months, when he finished his residency. Charlotte watched him pull a large white box from his backpack while she held her foot in the air, which was still streaming a steady flow of blood onto the sand.

The pain was slowly worsening; her initial shock was crumbling away to reveal a harsh, deep pain radiating from the center of her foot, and she was no longer able to stare at the blood calmly. Her face contorted in an effort not to cry out.

She knew there was little hope of getting to an emergency room in any reasonable amount of time; they’d hiked fourteen miles up the beach in hopes of exploring in solitude and there were no other people in sight. Sam would have to do what he could with whatever he’d brought in that white box.

“You need stitches,” he told her urgently as he inspected the gash, hands firm and sure on her foot and ankle. Charlotte bit back a hysterical laugh. “Of course I do,” she said, clutching at the sand at either side of her and gritting her teeth. “And I suppose you’re going to do it right here on the beach?” Sam, to her horror, pulled out of the white box a needle and some thick black thread. “This will hurt, sweetheart,” he told her gently as she gaped at him.

“You’re kidding. Please be kidding,” she cried shrilly. Sam pursed his lips and peered down at her foot. “You’ve got sand in the wound, so I’ll have to clean it first.”

The alcohol cut like liquid fire over the gash. Charlotte screamed as it entered deep into her bloodstream, her muscles twitching, then whimpered and shook as she watched Sam thread the needle. He got it on the first try; a true doctor, his hands steady and his mind clear.

Everything Charlotte saw was tinged with red… red sand, a throbbing red sky. She blinked, and the world was covered in bright red spots. If she had not been so distracted by the world’s sudden tendency towards red, she might have noticed a black box fall from Sam’s pocket and land in the sand nearby.

While still recovering from the pain of the alcohol, she felt a sharp pinch on her already burning foot and kicked out. “Charlotte!” Sam cried, holding her foot so tight it registered as a new pain, and looked sternly at her. “You have to hold still for this, okay?” His face softened as he looked down at her. She imagined herself in his eyes, shivering and wide-eyed, pupils dilated in fear.

“You can do this,” he told her in his own deep, honest voice, reaching out to cup her face with his hand. “It won’t take too long, I promise. Can you hold still for me?” 

Charlotte nodded, though she didn’t have much faith in herself. He went to work once more on the thin skin right in the center of the bottom of her foot, where the most sensitive nerve endings and tiniest muscles were.

She did scream, a lot. She also tried to kick a few times, but Sam held her fast.

Charlotte’s mind wandered, desperate not to land on the pain. Was she a terribly weak person? She thought of the television shows she’d seen where characters were tortured or wounded in battle, who didn’t scream as loud and as much as she currently was. She wondered if Sam would think less of her now that he’d seen her so pathetic. She wasn’t a beautiful damsel in distress, but an injured creature squirming on the ground, lashing out blindly.

She suddenly wondered, too, if she would see him differently; if she would burn with gratitude forever and ever, or if her current urge to kick him in the face would be burned so deeply into her mind that she’d never get it out. But then, what of women who cursed their husbands as they gave birth, but them seemed to forget the whole ordeal entirely until the next time around? Do humans block the worst pain from their memories? Or is that only when there’s a tiny, perfect baby to replace the pain?
What kinds of pain brought people closer, and what tore them apart? Surely this was not a tearing apart moment, but the question lodged itself in Charlotte's frantic mind. What could the two of them endure, and what could they not?

Finally, seconds or centuries later, Sam was pronouncing his work finished. He used a tiny pair of silver scissors to cut the thread, and loosened his vice-like grip on her ankle.

Sweat, tears and ocean water covered Charlotte from head to toe, leaving her shivering from both pain and cold. Sam wrapped her foot in gauze and then held it on his lap, deflating now that his work was done. Suddenly he looked exhausted, his own face dripping in sweat that Charlotte hadn’t noticed before. “You’re okay,” he was telling her, patting her leg softly.

Charlotte laid her head back and stared at the clear blue afternoon sky, breathing heavily.

She wondered if they would ever get up from this spot, ever stand and begin walking the fourteen miles back to the car, or if they would continue to sit there until the tide came in.

They would, eventually, make the long walk back, and they wouldn't bother exploring the shallow water to discover what exactly had cut her. What did it matter, after all? She had been up to date with her tetanus shots. Glass or nail or rock, what was the difference?

If they had found the thing that sliced into her skin, perhaps things would have been different. Perhaps they would have had some inkling as to what would happen next. But reader, they did not.