On Beauty & the Wasteland - v.1 / issue 5 - Accidents

 

On Beauty & the Wasteland
V.1 / issue 5

Accidents

I have ‘accidents’ until I am in the 4th grade. 

I have chronic urinary tract infections. 

I have to pee all the time and yet it hurts to pee. 

I dribble. 

I want to be close to the toilet. 

When our classroom goes to the bathroom all the children in a line, I wait in my stall until everyone leaves. Until I am alone. And then, I climb atop the bathroom stalls like the rafters, like the spider webs, like the walls. I get detention for not coming back to class. 

The doctor treating my UTIs wants to do tests on me. We have to go to the hospital several hours away. I am not permitted to eat. 

The doctor is going to inject dye into my body through a needle. 

“This won’t hurt,” they lie. “Count to ten, and it will all be over.”

I count to ten as fast as I can to get it over as fast as I can. 

“Count to ten again.” 

I start screaming. 

I am sitting up in the hospital bed, alone with mother. She turns to me, like a viper ready to strike.

“The doctors want to know why you have so many UTIs. But you and I both know it’s because you sit in your own poop.” Poop. She spits the word like venom.

I am embarrassed and confused. I do not understand why I have ‘accidents.’ Maybe it’s the suppositories she gives me for constipation? I do not feel an urge to poo until it’s too late. Until perhaps I am at school. Perhaps on the playground. Perhaps, poised atop the slide. 

There and then, the urge overtakes me, overwhelms me. I am stuck teetering, crouched, my foot in my groin. My face flushing. My eyes watering. I can’t move, or I will poo and pee myself. Yet, I have to move because the bell rings, and it’s time to return to class. 

At the hospital, they want me to pee so they can use the dye to track the path my urine takes inside my body. I do not have to pee. 

“You are always such a difficult child!”

My mother leads me winding through hospital corridors, requiring me to drink from every fountain we encounter. Fountains too tall for me. I stand on tip toes. The water drips down my front wetting my shirt. I am so cold. I have goose bumps. I am so hungry. Mother is angry. I am scared. I am crying. What if I can’t pee? I wind through corridors drinking from fountains too tall for an eternity. 

When we finish at the hospital, we go to a nearby Pizza Hut where the smell overwhelms me.

 I vomit all over their carpet.

The test results reveal that there is nothing wrong with me.