About Me - The early years (ii)

- My injury tendency quickly matured. The next accident was more gruesome. I was riding pillion on my father's old Yamaha motorcycle, sometime around my 7th birthday, an age when my young legs couldn't yet reach the pedestal. As the bike was about to round a corner into my neighbourhood, my left leg dangled into the back wheel and got trapped among the spinning spokes. I frantically signaled to my father to stop. Eventually he did. A kind hearted motorist stopped to help excavate my leg from the wheel. My left ankle was all raw. I could see black, red and white. Grime from the wheel, flesh dripping with blood, and standing out from which, part of my bone gleaming bright.

I did not cry, and calmly told my father to buy handiplasts from the mamak shop across the road. Thankfully he had enough sense left in him to not listen to my brave words. Plasters can't fix multiple fractures and a gaping wound.

The pain did not come till a couple of days later at the hospital, when they poured some solution to wash my wound. It felt like acid burning through my bones, forcefully purging out my stifled screams and teary eyes.

I spent the year-end holidays on wheelchairs and crutches. It took me a few months to eventually walk again and an entanglement of blotchy red scars remain in place of my skin today. My body was never whole again.