Madison Amos, “White Turns Red”

WHITE TURNS RED

Madison Amos

There was a lot of blood coming from my nose. Maybe it was a bloody nose coming from the dryness in the air, or maybe from me being a small kid playing around stairs just asking for an accident to happen. When it happened, I don’t really remember where we were going. All I knew was I was excited. I was running through the short halls and down the stairs with practiced ease with my older brother, Brandan, not too far behind me. I was stepping down the last flight of stairs, slightly more tired than before when I tripped and fell face forward into the metal-rimmed dirty stairs with a loud bang. I don’t remember anything being said at that moment. A lady from the first floor came out of her unit with a concerned look at the loud bang and must have quickly taken in the sight of my busted face because next thing I knew she had a white towel in her hand and was bringing it to my face. She guided me to tilt my head back while applying a heavy pressure to my nose. I remember the irritating headache and the white towel that changed color with the darkness of my blood. Next thing I knew, I was in the ambulance, then at the hospital in an uncomfortable bed with a needle poking somewhere into my nose bridge. Before getting the needle, the pain I felt was not really remembered due to my shock, but I assure you the pain was there. After the needle, all I felt was a weird numbness that I never felt before. When the drug set in, they soon started to sew my nose gash back together. I thrashed in the uncomfortable bed while my mom held my legs to keep me still the whole way through. My injury wasn’t serious enough to have had them knock me out completely, it was just strong enough to numb the pain from getting stitches. I remember seeing the blurred faces of the doctor and how they steadily did their job despite the struggle I gave. I don’t know the exact number of stitches I was given, but I do know it was enough to cover almost my entire nose bridge.

When everything was done, I got up and left the bright sterile room with my mom close behind. Everything felt weirdly normal even with the silly cartoon band-aid covering a closed but once opened and bloody gash. I remember showing my mom a watery smile after it was done to show that I was okay but I saw the tears in her eyes, cornering me. “Were you crying too?” I asked. “How could I not be with you thrashing around and crying like that.” She replied back in a way that was trying to brush off my original question. It makes sense that she was crying—I mean who wouldn’t be in a situation like this?—but I was shocked because I had never seen my mom cry before. We left this area to what I guessed was a cafeteria where I saw my siblings sitting. I don’t remember much that happened there except for when we had got some food to eat in the cafeteria and when I was eating, I felt the weirdest type of jolt run through my nose and jaw. I didn’t cry, but it immediately made me pout and push the food away. My mom questioned my actions. I just replied and said, “My nose.” She nodded in understanding. When we got home, I eventually went to the mirror in the bathroom. I was a short kid, so I remember standing on the bathtub to get a clear look at myself. I peeled the silly band-aid to reveal my freshly sewed nose. I didn’t have much of a reaction and wasn’t too worried about the way it looked. At the time I was about seven years old, in 2nd grade, and was out of school for a week. During the time I spent at home, the stitches started to heal, turning to a scab of some sorts. When my mom would come to put ointment on it, everyday she would tell me not to pick at it but I started doing what any kids does when they get a scab and started to slowly but surely pick at it. It ended up causing a scar in the end but that was an obvious outcome. On the plus side though, everyone was really nice to me since it happened. One particular moment was when I was laying on the top bunk of me and my younger sister’s bunk bed after I

just got back from the hospital. I was just laying on my back staring up at the cream ceilings when my older sister came up to where my head was resting and put a shiny black screen in my view. I’m not sure if I had asked previously, but I felt happy at the moment because I could finally get to use her iPad after almost always getting said no to. When I went back to school after a week and walked into a lunchroom for breakfast, everything felt kinda surreal. The lunchroom was filled with small elementary school kids walking around, acting silly, and chatting loudly. I just stood in the crowded room watching with tired eyes as one of my friends walked to me and pointed at my band-aid covered nose and asked, “What happened?” I explained to him what happened, and he just nodded then walked away, not asking questions. As the day went on a couple of people came up to me and asked what happened and asked to see my nose. It didn’t bother me that people wanted to know what happened, it just kinda filled me with an airy feeling. This happening to me never really caused a lot of trauma even though it was traumatic. However, it’s another experience to add to many that I will never forget.

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