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.
