The sight of blood
I remember the first time I ever saw my own blood.
My parents were having a Christmas party and the house was full of guests. All the adults were upstairs drinking and eating and complaining about the things that adults complain about and all the kids were downstairs playing in the basement living room. A room my parents called the “rumpus room.” Which I always thought was a made-up term until I was in my 30s and I learned that rumpus rooms were an actual thing.
There must have been a dozen kids running around in our basement. A mix of cousins and neighbourhood kids and kids that belonged to my parents friends. It was all fun and games until I took a gash to the head caused by the glass eyeball of an oversized cookie-monster stuffy. I clearly remember being mad as hell about until I realized I was hurt, which only happened because my neighbour’s cousin screamed out in terror.
I put my hand to my head and felt around for the site of the wound. I remember something oddly pleasant about the way it felt, warm and wet and thick on my fingertips. Then a smooth straight trickle of blood ran down my forehead, past my eye, over the contour of my nose, and onto my lip. I licked it off, not knowing what might happen. I wasn’t sure if it were lethal to lick up your own blood or if it might be magically transformative. I took the gamble.
That’s when all hell broke loose.
Everyone started screaming, and a bunch of half-worried, half-annoyed adults charged down the stairs and swarmed around me. Everything was confusion and shouting and I remember hearing a piercing cry that would not cease. I later found out was me. Someone fainted. I cried and gulped in oxygen and vowed to destroy my brother — who was the culprit.
During the car ride to the hospital, the gravity of my blood loss set in. I might die, I thought. I set my affairs in order and tried to leave instructions with my mother.
To my favourite cousin, all my books and my set of dominos — which I cherished but never played with.
To my dad, my piggy bank and all its contents.
My mother told me to shut up with such an angry snap that I burst into tears. It was one of the few times I ever felt her love as a tangible thing. I never really felt loved as a child, but at that moment, I knew she couldn’t bear the thought of losing me.
The doctor said I needed three stiches. My mother gasped.
The incident spurred something in me.
The following summer, I deliberately tried to break a bone by climbing to the highest point on the older kids’ jungle gym at the school and jumping off. The fall didn’t hurt me, I was…how shall I put it…naturally well padded. I barely had a scratch on me, but a nearby adult had seen the whole thing and telephoned my mother in a frantic panic.
Good, I thought. Sympathy.
I feigned severe injury.
But instead of giving me that same affirmation of affection upon seeing blood running down my face, she brought me home and hit me with a wooden spoon and sent me to my room.
I tried to drown in a pool. Perish by falling off a horse. Ingest a poisonous overdose of yogurt two days past its expiration date. But, nothing worked.
My mother was unmoved, so I gave up.
But every now and then, when I’m feeling particularly neglected, a dark little thought will pop into my brain at random and I’ll think about that night and the first time I saw my own blood.