Mosaic

Chapter One and Two

                                                                     1. 

At the end, a hush falls over the arena as the crowds are absorbed into the night. At the end, the flashing red light on the ambulance fades like a distant star. At the end, the scoreboards are wiped and every hard-fought point is forgotten. You do one last skate over the slush and cracks in the ice. You feel the cracks zigzag and widen; you extend desperate fingers to avoid the collapse. You stop at the hole, the entry point, the garish splotch of blood. The lights dim until nothing is visible but the silver streaks of a broken mirror. A tiny voice whispers, Game over.

                                                                       2.  

                                                                     Erin 

Some days, you shouldn't get out of bed. 

"Madre de Dios. Who are you? And what happened to your fa-- I mean, what are you doing here?" 

His words pinned me to the ground, like a specimen in a glass case, a bug in the Montreal Insectarium. 

My normal response would be: "Well, who the hell are you?" and, "I didn't see a sign that said 'Private Beach,' so I have as much right to park myself here as anyone else." 

But I wasn't exactly parked, more like concealed behind a palm tree and sneaking forward through the grass to, you know, listen in, and it was the other half of his question, the broken one, that really hurt. 

Why would I need to hide and sneak, you might wonder? Who really does that, eh? 

Someone who doesn't want to be that specimen. 

So there I was, exposed and displayed for all to see. I needed to rip out the pins and bolt or vanish. Frantic, I looked in ten different directions at once.  

I made an attempt and scrambled halfway up, but before I could escape the headlights of his eyes, I froze again. Struck. Blindsided. Breathless. A weird epiphany needled into my brain. It whispered, "death isn't stalking you anymore."  

I could have sighed. After all, a part of me still wanted to live. 

Not like this, of course. Not like this limping, cowering piece of shit. 

There had been many moments over the past six months when I hadn't wanted to live. When I'd drifted away to the sounds of cheers and the flood of Gatorade over my head and wake up to stabbing pain, blurred vision, casts and pins and coat hangers stuck through me (or at least they looked that way). My face felt like a dartboard, and I'd think, God, you hit a bull's-eye, didn't you? It was for getting so cocky, wasn't it? For thinking I could actually challenge the guys, compete in a man's world, make it to the NHL. Ha! 

Joke's on you, Erin. He's laughing. 

I would have laughed too, but it hurt too much to laugh, or smile, or move. 

But this was my chance to recover. This tropical island with the palm trees and the glittering postcard horizon. Nobody knew me. No one would look at me. 

Who was I kidding? 

So what do you do when you'd like to dissolve into a puddle and drain into the dirt? You slink away. But I wasn't capable of slinking, yet. Inelegant hobbling. That was about it. And he'd already seen me, so what was the point?