Spiderweb Lightening [https://cdn.midjourney.com/d609be38-bdfa-41f0-b6d7-3c473cd1291d/0_2.webp]
Red…
“Try again.” Berl encouraged him. Red gathered himself to try. He was beginning to hate the man. “I know it hurts, but if you don’t work on the range of motion while it’s healing, you will regret it.” He fought the urge to tell him what he could do with his medical degree. Even knowing it was for his own good, it was hard to swallow the instructions when the man gave them.
Gritting his teeth, Red extended his leg, scar tissue burned on either side of his shattered kneecap as he stretched, stressing the spiderwebs of new scar tissue. During his physical therapy, he despised everyone.
Berl repeated, “Flex.”
“Fuck you.” Ignoring the fact that his words had no effect at all on the practical young physician, Red flexed his calf and brought his toe upward. Agony and burning. “Only sadists refuse to give their patients pain medication.”
“Only idiots numb the body when it is most important for the pain to let the patient know when to stop.”
“I’m pretty sure it’s saying stop.” His knee was making up curse words. Inventing them with each exercise.
“It’s not. You are still talking. Now point, nice and slow.” The doctor’s hands increased the stretch and fire shot through his leg close to the bone, electric and hot.
“Fuck you.”
“I’m flattered you save all your pretty talk just for me.” He increased the downward pressure on the next extension and Red bit down on a scream. “Your ring brothers are going to get jealous.”
Red forced his toes down, unwilling to pussy out of a challenge, clamping his teeth to press through the pain. He could at least pretend to be a man. Wounded as he was, he couldn’t call himself that anymore. He never would be whole. Broken and useless, he finally understood why others had returned to bear, where the pain and the shame would dull.
The tale has been illicitly lifted; should you spot it on Amazon, report the violation.
He’d do fine in the woods. His whole life, the wild had been the only place he felt he belonged. When his chance to prove his worth had come, he’d failed them all. His stepfather’s voice echoed at the back edge of his pain. You are a worthless shit stain.
*
Nana…
Every time a car passed, Nana gripped the steering wheel. All the street lights and reflective surfaces she approached turned into starbursts. Focusing on the ribbon of yellow line marking the side of the road, she was able to keep her car, as best she could, right in the middle of the lane.
Mary Lynn was restless in her seat. She said, “There is a rest stop coming up. I need to make a pit stop. It’s in half a mile.”
Nana dampened her lips and tasted salt. Driving at night was making her sweat. They had seen images on the news about the fire that took Mary’s house. The devastation was total. Mary Lynn had nothing left. Her daughter-in-law lived a cursed life. She couldn’t imagine navigating that level of loss. Nan’s whole life was in her house. The memories of her husband and son e preserved in a thousand small objects. Jim was sitting on her mantel, for heaven’s sake. She didn’t want to stop. “Can you hold it? We will stop for gas when we get to the next town.”
“I can pee in your car if you like. Do you have a large cup?” Being particularly rude, her daughter-in-law rummaged around under the front seat. She pulled out a plastic bag. “I could line this with napkins.” She shook the flimsy plastic. “It looks like it will leak, but it’s your car.” The stubborn creature reached for the buttons on her pants.
A loud, drawn out horn snapped Nan’s focus back onto the road and she brought herself into the confines of her own lane. “How far did you say the next rest stop was?”
“It’s the turn right here.” Mary thrust her arm out and pointed toward the exit they were about to pass.
Nan turned, just a little too sharply, and they bumped across the shoulder. Her wheels caught the slippery grass, and they went spinning, bright lights flashing across the glass, blinding her. When the car finally stopped, they were facing the right way, two tires on the actual off ramp, two in the slippery grass. With a thank you whispered to her guardian angel, she started forward, hoping all four tires were still intact. The cats yowling was loud and frantic. Mr. Tibbles’ cage had tipped onto its side, and he wanted them to know the horror he had just endured.
Both wide eyed, they pulled into a parking spot, as drops of rain began to fall.
Mary Lynn let out a low hiss of pain as she stretched to shift Mr. Tibbles’ cage back into place. “Maybe you should let me drive.”
“Never.” Stiffening her shoulders, hands death gripping the wheel, Nana snapped, “This is my car, I will drive it. The exit just came up fast. My driving record is excellent.”
The look the woman gave her was scalding. Grumbling under her breath, her son’s wife got out of the car and limped toward the restrooms. Lightning cracked, brightening the sky with a wild spiderweb of blue light. The rap of knuckles against her window close to Nana’s head made her scream.