Derailed

I go where gravity takes me. As an infant I fell off the bed, spraining an arm. I have no memory of that, of course. The sprain I remember was from falling off a guava tree at the family farm when I was eight. I remember it well because I forbade my sister to tell my grandfather about the spill, and Lolo Tering was the most relaxed driver in the world. At ten kilometers an hour over rough roads, it was the longest ride of my life.

I used to dream a lot about flying. It felt more like floating, really. In fact, it was the feeling of weightlessness I remember most from those dreams. I’m quite sure of that because I also used to sleepwalk, and during those awful episodes I felt the physical world oppressively bearing down on me. I was later diagnosed with a mild case of epilepsy.

My first conscious experience of flight was down the stairs. It happened at school when I was 13. I was running late and had just reached the top rung when a classmate came barreling around the corner and crashed into me. The stairs were concrete, as was the floor. It wasn’t the smartest move to have tried to cushion the impact with my right arm.

I think it was Papoy who rushed to my side first. At any rate it was he, who, upon seeing radial bone sticking out of my forearm, grabbed my wrist and jerked it straight out. Where the pain from impact was muffled by shock, this was pure torture. I was rushed to the hospital and went home with my arm in cast and sling.

The accident left said arm at a queer angle. You’ll hardly notice it if I do not stick it straight out, or that it’s an inch shorter than my left arm. But it tires easily. To this day I’m not quite sure who to blame for my singkaw: myself, the classmate who crashed into me (now a doctor himself), or Papoy, who nearly took my arm off. Maybe we should’ve sued the school for the blind corner design of the stairs, but civil litigation had yet to be invented then.

I have also flown over the handlebar of a motorbike. If you imagine “seeing stars” is just a colorful phrase, I’m telling you, it is quite literal. I remember disengaging my lips from the pavement (I lost both central incisors) and trying to get the bike upright. “Oh no you don’t,” said a voice from behind me. “We have to wait for the police. You hit someone.”

That someone turned out to be a schoolmate’s mother. Apparently, I have a knack for keeping accidents within my academic family (or I just live in a very small town). At least on the next round no one was hurt save me; the dog managed to avoid the wheel at the very last second. Taking advantage of my incapacity, my mother promptly sold the bike. I didn’t find out about it until two weeks later, when I was fit enough to drive again.

Maybe I’m just a klutz. I also have a fear of heights. I’m working on it. I have done two zip-lines so far. I figure that if a cable snaps, a broken arm will be the least of my worries. I draw the line at bungee-jumping — that feels too much like falling.

But who am I kidding? These days it doesn’t take much to waylay me. Two days ago I woke up with pain in and around my wrist. The right, of course — it’s always my right arm — which means I can’t even bathe or brush my teeth without great discomfort. The thing is, I don’t have an idea how this came to be. I must have slept on that wrist far longer than usual. At my age it’s pressure enough.

“You don’t have to cook, you know,” my mother says. I know, but I’m tired of ordering out. Besides, I can always borrow the laundrywoman’s hands. Nothing elaborate this time, just toasted/fried pancit Canton (egg noodles) topped with vegetables and yakisoba sauce. The help does the wrist-work (slicing/sautéing) while I mix the sauce and fry the noodles (albeit clumsily with my left paw). The dish takes no time to cobble together. Too bad I can not give you the recipe just yet — the sauce needs more balance. Does that sound familiar?