Index Toe

I dislocated my toe on Thursday. It was a sparkling, blue-eyed day where all moisture snaps to crystaline attention. I was playing hooky, was listening to some unbelievable music in my car, and had pulled up to the top level of an eight storey parking garage. Don't you always go to the top - isn't it worth that extra time to stand on an open roof and see the world spread out before you?

I turned off the car, but left the music on, I was alone, and the steam rose in billowed columns all around the city. It was beautiful, I was singing, and I gleefully kicked a snow mound at my feet.

Except it wasn't snow.

It was a hard turtle-shell of ice, connected firmly to the parking garage. And I'd kicked with all my might. All of my tiny might. The mound didn't move. My toe did.

The second joint folded up on itself, like a lamb lying near its mother, and the pain blossomed through my foot like a blessing.

I was so shocked, so amazed, all I could do was say "Oh my god, oh my god, OH MY GOD" and stare, laughing and wide-eyed. I don't remember feeling pain so...well...intimate. Superficial cuts and hammer hits, involving skin and nail and bruise and blood...hiss and breathe out and they're gone.

This was much more than that, it was like something was released in me that set my foot on fire.