Awakening Old Dæmons (July 6, 2019)

They're back 

My night terrors. 

In a burning room

Fire dances 

Before me.

Seductively 

Flames sway

Suffocating my body. 

Awakened

Body - locked down mode

Sporadic muscles twitching.

Otherwise 

My leaden body 

Is normal.

By-product 

Childhood electrical burn

Around my mouth. 

Don't understand 

Why now? 

Thought 

Had settled

This old PTSD trauma.

Given distance 

Between recent events

Of several years. 

I was wrong.

As sleep becomes

A feared time 

Once more. 

Therisa © 2019

Author’s note: This November will mark the 45th anniversary of the electrical scars,

around my mouth, both inside and outside of it. Have been told, I’m lucky to be alive, after

describing the events on that 1974 November night. I don’t remember the exact date, but

other details are burnt into my memory. 

My dad was working the afternoon shift, for the regional natural company, as a special

gas fitter. My brother had just turned 2 years old, the previous month. Mom was upstairs,

on the main floor of the bungalow, doing what, I don’t know. I was downstairs in the

basement, watching an old TV set, with the space heater plugged in. Feeling too hot, I

tried to unplug the heater, but failed. Instead of asking for help, from mom, I used my

teeth, to get a grip on the heater cord and the extension cord. Never realizing the danger that I was placing myself in, by doing so. 

Long story short, I ran upstairs, my mouth blown open from the electrical current that

travelled through me. Vividly remember, mom panicking, upon seeing my ruined face.

Calling our next store neighbour, the O’Connors, for guidance, where she should take

me, for emergency treatment, living in a small rural Ontario village, where the nearest

hospital was 30 minute drive, in good weather.

I remember mom placing me in the backseat, as she drove to Guelph’s St Joachim

Hospital ER, where I was placed on a hallway bed, as my face was examined by

the ER doctors. I don’t remember anything else, from that November night, except I,

now scared of open flames and sudden ignition of fire, when having to lit the pilot

flame on the family barbecue or gas stove.