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Sport 34: Winter 2006

III

III

I've got one eye because God took the other one. Sometimes when I'm waking up I can feel my other eye opening too but the doctor said that's just my brain remembering and after a while it will forget. Where I got hurt was called the cornea and they tried to fix it but then it got infected because the bird had germs on its beak. The doctor said I would still be able to see fine with just one eye but it would get tired at the beginning and I'd have to do exercises to make it stronger. I don't want my brain to forget about my eye. Being dead might be when your brain forgets about your whole body.

Well my brother Brendan got confirmed last year. It's when God descends from heaven as a bird on fire and lives inside you and burns you up so you become new. It's a sign of His love but only if He decides you're ready. I told Brendan he should wait and get more prepared because he takes the Lord's Name in vain and he also smokes cigarettes. But he said I was a retard and if you waited you wouldn't get any presents. I wish Brendan would come and see me.

Before I was in hospital, I used to go to the chapel at school and wait for God to give me a sign. I'd do the Stations and imagine how Jesus suffered for me and I usually could make myself cry. Another thing I would do was prostrate myself before the altar like Father Brunetti. I usually only did it if no one was there but once Sister Anthony came in and I pretended I was praying too hard to notice and then I got up quickly and was embarrassed. And afterwards she asked me in front of the whole class if I was going to join the convent and I got hassled page 154and everybody called me Sister for about a week, so God would have definitely seen me suffer. Mum says I have to learn to be humble and open my heart to God in small ways. But I think He knew I was ready and that's why He descended as the Holy Spirit and took away one eye and gave me a different one. When He came for me His wings sucked up all the air and His voice sounded like a gate opening. So I've suffered and now God lives inside me and shows me what He sees.

Dad came to hospital again in his work clothes, he doesn't come at normal times like Mum. He said, how are you feeling? Then he held my hand and didn't say anything else, just looked at me. It was sort of embarrassing because I thought he might cry again and also he shouldn't have got angry at me before, so I pretended to go to sleep. There was something moving like wings underneath all the colours and it started being a headache. I noticed Dad had let go of my hand, so I woke up and he'd left a present for me. And I opened it and inside was the magpie.

When I was little at the beach one time I nearly drowned. I kept getting dumped by waves until I didn't know where the air was anymore. I tried but it was bigger than me and that's what this is like. It hurts so much it doesn't fit inside. The magpie just lies in the box and looks at me with one eye and maybe it would like to see out the window, so we go over and have a look but then I noticed that its eyes aren't real and I fall through the window into the sky and stay there looking down. It's just like in the dam, everything around you is thick like cream holding you up and everything else is soft and dark and really far. I don't know where I start or finish because I can feel everything and it all feels the same except for one shiny thing down there which is our house. Then Brendan climbs out the window of our house and I try to call him but he goes out of the light, then he's gone. And I want to go down there, I try, but the sky won't let me.

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