To the Bone in Mrs. F’s Neck,
I mean, turns out you weren’t a bone at all. You were a muscle that Mrs. F turned into a bone with the strength of her own mind. I was a child when I was first introduced to you. Mrs. F was the age of my own grandmother. She smiled often and was upright with pressed slacks and a neat blouse and a cane. It was the polio that resulted in your birth, Bone. Or at least that’s the way I interpreted it.
“Eg trodde det var et bein,” she said, gesturing to you, Bone in her neck. Until a doctor revealed your true nature, Bone. When you were squeezed, tears ran down her cheeks. You were soft tissue, but you had been storing tears and those changed you. Made you change form. She was astonished to know that you were mere flesh. Magicked into steel by her own mind.
You introduced an important concept in my mythology, Bone. That pain is written on the body – more than that, pain is stored in the body, to make it strong when it needs to be, and that when it is earned, and when it is quiet and you are alone, you can release it to experience the stinging rasp of actual joy. That is joy: the release of pain. Not one without the other. Never simple, always complicated, never just one thing.
Did you know? Did you know all along what you truly were, or did you get lost in the role?
You are long gone, Bone, having never truly been bone at all. You worked hard and I, for one, will never forget you.
-e.