“Juncture” by Bari Lynn Hein
flash creative nonfiction
“Sun in a Cage” by Vishaal Pathak
You hold out your hand and I take it, squeeze it, tell myself that everything will be OK. You help me to my feet, pick up my sunglasses and water bottle off the asphalt. I watch your eyes widen with shock and then narrow with concern, though you speak in a tone that’s calm and reassuring. As we make our way home, I keep stopping to sit on the sidewalk, afraid I might pass out.
I don’t pass out.
You wrap ice cubes in a towel to press against my chin, bring me water, keep the conversation upbeat, quip as you drive me to the ER that they’ll probably say it’s barely a scratch and send me home.
They don’t tell me that.
You take a photo of me while I’m lying on a hospital bed. I protest at first but then you tell me I’m always beautiful. I smile because that’s what I do when I’m looking at you. I’m reminded, briefly, of the photos you took of me both times I was in labor, years before we conceived of capturing moments with anything but a camera. We’ve been through better.
We’ve been through worse.
A man comes in wearing street clothes, identifying himself as an EMT who’s helping out the staff today. His casual attire and casual demeanor give you pause; you conduct an on-the-spot job interview, asking him about his experience. I listen to the two of you chat while he sutures my chin, comforted by the sound of your voice. He’s injected so much lidocaine, I imagine my chin to be a baseball glove that’s being re-stitched. I’m glad it’s me on the table and not you. I’m not as strong as you.
When he’s done, you exclaim, “Fourteen stitches!” as if I’ve achieved something today—something other than disrupting our cherished morning routine. Will we ever want to walk around the lake again?
The doctor comes in and you ask more questions. What scans are planned? What warning signs should we be watching for in the days ahead? My only question is: When can we go home and pretend none of this ever happened?
Hours later, we are free to go.
But we cannot pretend none of this ever happened.
The bruises on my face and neck call attention to how much worse this could’ve been.
The triangular juncture of three paths where I lost my footing becomes the setting for a recurring nightmare. I keep reliving the fall like it’s a movie clip being rewound and replayed over and over again, day after day. I try to change the outcome so that I’m bouncing back up, like I’ve fallen onto a trampoline instead of a ledge of asphalt. I even add a cartoonish sound effect—boy-yoing.
It doesn’t really help.
I struggle to find my footing again, remind myself that we’ve walked along that section of sidewalk countless times before, laughing, talking, planning, breathing in the fragrance of a new day and listening to the birds—owls, woodpeckers, geese, Eastern blue jays with their wings the color of denim, and those obnoxious birds that are so small and so loud and so insistent. You were starting to learn all their names and then you stopped.
You say you don’t blame me but I know you’re struggling, too.
This morning, when you ask me if I’d like to take a walk, your voice is casual, as if there has been no interruption to our cherished routine. I try to respond with the same composure, though my heart is racing.
We lace up our hiking boots, talk about our plans for the week ahead. We step outside and breathe in the fragrance of a new day. The birds greet us, ask us where we’ve been. Last time we walked along this path, we didn’t get very far, but walking back, the distance felt insurmountable.
We see it up ahead: the triangular juncture of three paths where I lost my footing, the asphalt ledge that punched me in the face. We approach slowly. The birds stop singing.
You hold out your hand and I take it, squeeze it, tell myself that everything will be OK.
Bari Lynn Hein was the winner of the 2024 Bethesda Short Story Contest, a finalist in the 2018 Saturday Evening Post Great American Fiction Contest, and a semifinalist in contests sponsored by Phoebe Journal and Cutbank. Her stories have been published in dozens of journals worldwide, among them Prime Number, The Baltimore Review, Mslexia, The Amsterdam Quarterly, Samjoko, and Bosphorus Review of Books. A novel set in Baltimore in the 1970s will soon go on submission. Learn more at barilynnhein.com.
A self-taught photographer, Vishaal Pathak's work has appeared or is forthcoming in Juste Milieu Zine, Moiramor, Ink In Thirds, Moonlit Getaway, Quibble Lit, Union Spring Literary Review, Another Chicago Magazine, Asterales Journal, Nat 1, Gabby & Min's Literary Review, Paper Dragon, 3Elements Review, Eleventh Hour Literary, and The Word's Faire.