Harold Melton was seven years old when Wally Logen sprayed Raid in his eyes. It was just after noon on Christmas day, and Harold had gone to the school to ride the bike Santa left. Wally Logen was creeping around in the hallways waiting for kids to show up to play with their new toys. When kids showed up, Wally attacked, and as the bullied children fled, Wally made his own Christmas merrier by taking whatever was left behind.

As Wally struck, Harold went down, and his brand new bike slid out from under him. It hit the wall of one of the school buildings, and he heard the sound of his arm breaking echoed in the shattering glass of his new bike’s headlamp.

At first, the pain in Harold’s arm was masked by adrenaline. It felt like pins pricking his skin—a hot sort of tingling—and while this sensation built into real pain, Harold saw the scattered pieces of his bike’s headlamp glinting on the ground. Dazed, he wondered how the glass shards would look sticking out of Wally Logen’s eyes. He imagined Wally as Godzilla crashing around an imaginary town as bits of glass from the buildings he’d toppled over flew into his face.

Adrenaline spent, the break in Harold’s arm triggered the pain receptors in his brain, and he passed out. The next thing Harold remembered was being put into an ambulance with his mother and a police officer who asked him a few questions. But something was wrong. Harold was waking up with different pain. His arm didn’t hurt, but other things did, and he wasn’t in an ambulance, although, he was on his back in a bed. Harold heard lots of yelling, and as he sat up, he recognized his surroundings.

Through one of the unpredictable holes in his dementia, he understood he was an old man
in a nursing home who’d been dreaming about a time long ago. He also understood the yelling
came from an orderly who was grabbing at his eyes and screaming about flying glass.

Harold smelled the flowers then. They were scattered on the floor and surrounded by a pool of water and broken bits of what had once been a vase. The room filled quickly as others were drawn to the ruckus. The first nurse to arrive took one look and raced back into the hallway hollering for a doctor. Harold tried to get someone’s attention—to tell what had happened—but no one was listening. All eyes were on the injured orderly, and Harold’s pleas faded as the weather in his head turned foggy once again.

THE END

Shawn Hansen is busy writing more stuff.