Double Dares & Dish Towels

The roll of wire fencing had been carelessly left leaning against the back wall of the tennis court. It was a little over my height and a couple of feet thick but the center was hollow. Dare you! my brother was yelling with a menacing laugh, Double dare you! I knew better, of course, but I had a fierce desire to wipe the smug look of his twisted face and silence that nasty laugh. I was also about eleven, so in I climbed. I discovered instantly that "in" was going to be a picnic compared to "out" and predictably, as soon as I was in, my brother mounted his bike and rode away.

The only way out was up, holding onto the top of the roll. It's edges were barbed and very sharp and when I finally managed to get a grip, the wire tore into my hands and snagged on my clothes. Between the pain and the blood, I was very nearly panicked and though I yelled my heart out, no one came. When I did finally get out, my hands were cut, my clothes were torn and at the last minute a stray strand of wire had caught my upper arm and opened a long gash which was bleeding at an impressive rate. I began the walk home in dread with hate searing at me from within. The wound to my arm took a dozen or so stitches and I had to have a tetanus shot. My mother sat fuming in the emergency room and I knew the worst was yet to come - disturbing her afternoon routine was bad enough but forcing her to leave the house was downright suicidal and, as she pointed out for weeks, I had ruined some of her dish towels trying to stop the bleeding from my arm. Blood never comes out once it's set, she snapped at me as the young ER doctor sutured my arm, What were you thinking? He have her an odd look but said nothing and we rode home in a bitter silence.

I was sent to my room and denied supper. My brother sullenly claimed to have been elsewhere all afternoon and to know nothing at all about what had happened. I watched him lie as effortlessly as breathe, saw my mother side with him at once, heard my daddy's tired sigh at the commotion. The hate grew hotter and slowly began to improvise a life of it's own. The injustice of the incident burned bright, fueling the hatred and feeding my resentment. Vindictiveness is not a pretty emotion and each time I saw my brother's face smirking behind my parents backs, I hated more. I told myself to let it go but the fury hung on with an ever tightening grip and I began to seethe with rage and plan his destruction. I added up all the similiar wrongs he had done me and gotten away with, and the hate turned white hot and began to slip into my dreams at night.

Fifty years have passed and I can still call it back at will. The power and endurance of negative emotions is nothing short of miraculous.