A Scar I Can Talk About

What would you do with a crop of new fallen snow?

kid sledding in snow

The snow crunched under my 8-year-old feet as I dragged the sled behind me. We didn’t really have any hills in our yard, but I was about to make my own. My dad had a dirt pile next to the garage, corralled with old corrugated metal roofing. Last fall it had been the place where we emptied the extra flats from the greenhouse, and mixed in dead leaves and grass. By spring it would be a rich. loamy pile of soil, ready to fill the flats for your little greenhouse. But now, the dirt was frozen solid, covered with a good six inches of new snow, and waiting for someone looking for a place to sled. It worked fine at first – I dragged my little sled to the top of the pile, sat down and pushed off. Over and over my own little hill worked great, until it became slick from repeated use. On what turned out to be my last run down, the sled skidded out and I went straight into the metal edging. It was a terrific scar on my left knee which remains today. Only about an inch long, not jagged, but definitely impressive. It should have been stitched, but wasn’t because that would have involved getting a ride to town, spending money at the doctor, and so on. That’s okay, because now I have a scar I can talk about.

(The assignment: Write about a scar, real or imagined.)