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Kristen McCullough

Christina Roberston

Essay #1

2.16.11

What’s Left Behind

My finger flaps the top corner of the page, my hand poised at the ready. My eyes blaze a

trail through the words strung together. My mind has long since been lost between the covers. I

barely pause as my eyes hit the last word on page 277 and land on the top of 278, my fingers a

blur in action.

“Kris!”

I falter, missing a sentence. I puff my cheeks out and blow on the page before going back

to rescue the words left behind.

“Kris!”

This time, my dark blues miss a whole paragraph. My finger jumps from flapping the

corner of the next page to the middle of the book, my undetachable bookmark.

“What?” I holler back loud enough for my voice to carry to the source of my disruption.

“Go feed the cats!”

I clutch the book to my chest, heat rising to my face. I feel my fingers tingle as I carefully

insert a piece of paper, marking my spot, before slamming it shut.

Always when things are getting good. . . can’t anyone leave me in peace? . . . Why can’t

Marc do it? Why not Mom?

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“Hey,” Dad summons, his voice echoing in the empty addition. I poke my head into the

room and smell the two by fours that make up the room. “Watch for the construction metal.

Wear shoes. You’ll have to hop over to get to the cat food.”

I grumble an ‘okay’ before running down the stairs, my callused feet scraping on the

wood. I put on a coat and look down at my legs, uncovered to the thighs. I skip over the shoes

strewn across the tile. I think of my book atop the bunched blankets and the warmth of my bed

waiting for my return as I slip on my sandals. I yank the door open to a bunch of curious eyes

and hungry yowls. I retrieve the food bowl and run to the garage. My feet slip around in the foam

sandals, leaves grind between my toes. Opening the garage door, I barely take notice of the

coiled sheet metal before rocketing over, my mind still inside the bindings of the book upstairs.

By the time I hop over to the concrete outside the garage, my stomach turns. I tilt my head

toward my brother, who is busy re-shingling the grainery. Warmth washes over my right foot.

Irked and thinking Butterball has tried to ‘mark’ his territory again, I look down.

A shriek falls from my lips. I twist my head to look up at the second floor window, an

outline of my dad’s body visible between the new window stickers.

“Daaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaad!”

I see his head whip around and he bends to open the window. I feel tears streak down my

face and my nose clogs with snot. I am dimly aware of the clanking metal ladder and the muffled

pounding of my brother’s feet across the dead grass.

“What?” My dad’s face is half hidden behind the screen, but listening to the breath that

exudes with this question, I can tell he has been interrupted measuring something. I point to my

foot, surprised that I am angry with him.

First interrupting my book, now this.

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The window slams shut and my brother reaches me, his chest pumping.

“What’swrongwhat’shappened?”

I point at my foot again somehow unable to speak. A feeling of injustice seals my vocal

cords shut. Or maybe I was just choking on the fluid dripping from my nose. My brother swears.

He grabs my hands and lowers me to the grass. I can’t take my eyes off the pool of blood

contained in my sandal.

The front door opens and my dad appears, Mom shuffling down the wood path behind

him. I realize I’ve begun to choke on sobs as Mom sends my brother to get a towel.

“I’ll take her to the hospital. . .” my dad’s voice is drowned out by the opening of the

other garage door.

“You’ll be okay sweetie, it doesn’t look so bad now that the sandal is off,” my mom

shouts into my ear to be heard over the gears of the door. I notice she is taking particular care to

look at my face, not my foot. She’s also very pale.

The next thing I know, Dad is bundling my foot in a towel and as the van’s engine

groans, I watch my brother spray my shoe with the hose, milking the white foam of its red

innards.

***

My finger flaps the top corner of the page, my hand poised at the ready. My eyes blaze a

trail through the words strung together. My mind has long since lost itself between the covers.

My eyes hit the last word on page 150 and land on top of 151.

I jerk my head up at the sound of my name, a whisper in my ear.

The door to my dorm room is closed. As feeling and memory come back to me from the

book, I realize my legs are dangling awkwardly over each other. My forefinger has been tracing
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the pale scar on my right big toe. It had been itching, and a hollow hint of pain lingered deep

inside. I rub and massage my toe until I realize that only makes it worse.

I lean back onto my pillow and stretch, wiggling my toes. I follow the point of my big toe

to the pictures plastered just above on the pale yellow wall.

Images of Italy, Singapore, Greece, England, India, and other various landscapes glow,

outshining the blinding wall color bordering each. A sigh from deep in my chest builds and spills

from my lungs, an exclamation in the quiet night. The automatic light overhead clicks off.

I close my eyes and the stench of carpet and peanuts hits my nose-hairs. I remember the

anticipation; my legs jumping like kids ready for a bathroom ten minutes ago. My hands clasped

and unclasped, my knees protesting from lack of leg room. And stick after stick of gum

producing silent burps of mint, making my jaw ache, my ears popping after takeoff.

I can feel the rough landing in Berlin, exhaustion deluding me into thinking I’ve jumped

seventy years back in time at the sight of the wounded stone buildings. I can smell the green of

Oregon. My eyes are glued to the water kissing my toes in California. In Washington DC I

recognize the white haired head in front of me, the voice of John McCain demanding new

information from our nation’s military leader. The glow of artificial lights in Las Vegas wakes

me as we fly over the city, getting ready to land.

My big toe calls me back. I lay in the darkness, smelling carpet and peanuts, the glare of

the security light just outside my window illuminating a line on the wall. I stare at the space

where windows into other countries are mounted, and I sigh. My toe burns, so I wiggle it—the

itch I cannot scratch.