scream

After she fell on the field, after the collision, the body-check or whatever they call it, she was down on the artificial turf. It wasn't right. She wasn't right. Something was off. Then, as if from another dimension, from the back recesses of some other region, not on this planet, a sound emerged. Or was it there immediately? Perhaps a few beats afterward, the way characters who are shot, in the movies (I've never witnessed a shooting in 3-D life), do not react until they see the blood pouring out of the wound. A keening was heard. Everyone in the stadium heard this siren, this scream of pure pain, hoarse and insistent and demanding and unkenneled. From my daughter. Her mother and I ran to her, the coach and medics already calming her, containing this eruption of hurt. Torn ACL. Broken tibia. Who knows what else. (Thank God, not a head or spinal injury.) She is recovering. Yes, others have been similarly injured in sports or dance or life. No monopoly here. But I'll tell you what: my ears and heart have never heard anguish quite like that. Nor do I ever want to hear it again. But I'm grateful that we were there for her. All of us. Everyone was there for her.