On the Sixth Day
BY MICHELLE T. TAN I FEBRUARY 18, 2010
My name is Ian. I am nine years old. I have black hair and brown eyes. I am Chinese, so I guess that makes my skin yellow. I have a small face and tiny eyes. I am not so very tall (though I would like to be), and yet I have big feet. I do not like my feet. I have six fingers on each hand, but I am a normal boy. When it is not summer I go to school every day except Saturdays and Sundays. Papa says it's what good boys do, and I am a good boy. At school I read and count and write and play with my classmates. Sometimes we sing songs too. Singing's okay, but I like playing the best. Everybody does. We all run to the playground during recess. I am always the first to arrive. Maybe it's because of my big feet. I do not like my feet. I always go to the monkey bars first. It is my favorite, before the swings. I like the swings second-best. I am the best at monkey bars.
Strange things are happening to me. I do not know why. It started some days ago, from my stomach. I looked down and saw that it was green around my belly button. At first I thought it was pretty neat. It took me a while to realize that my whole belly was turning green. I went to Papa. "My belly button is green." I pulled up my shirt to let him see. "That's great, Ian," he said without looking. "But it's green," I said, pointing. Papa put down the paper he was reading. He knelt in front of me and pushed his face closer to my belly. "So it is," he said. Then he stood up and gave me a pat on the head. "Good work, pumpkin."
The next day was a Saturday. I woke up to see that my entire stomach had turned green. It was a cloudy kind of green, so you couldn't see through it very well. I thought that was great. I thought it could keep people from poking around and looking at my insides. But still. It looked very weird. My veins were showing, and that didn't feel so good. I was scared the greenness would spread all over my body so I went to Papa again. I asked him why I was turning green. He looked at me for a while before rubbing his forehead. He always does that when he's thinking. He told me to take off my shirt and lie on the bed. He looked at my stomach for a while. "I don't know," he said, "but it's probably nothing. I don't think we have to worry."Then he kissed me on the forehead and called me a good boy. That made me feel a bit better.
The next morning Papa and I went to church. It was very hot inside and very crowded. I did not like that there were so many people. Before we left the house I had looked at myself in the mirror. My whole body had turned green by then, and my eyes were very yellow. I felt like a monster. I wanted to hide but Papa wouldn't let me. He said I looked fine. At church I waited for somebody to say something, but no one did. Nobody looked at me, not even Papa. It made me feel a little relieved, but as soon as we found an empty pew I sat down and started praying. I prayed very, very hard. I even closed my eyes. I asked God to please make me normal again. I wanted so much to be a normal boy again. When I stood up I saw Papa smiling at me. He said he was lucky to have a son like me.
When I woke up on Monday I was sticky all over. There was something white and pasty coming out of my skin. It almost had me glued to the bed. I took a bath many times but that didn't help. I couldn't wash it away. The sticky fluid kept coming back. It seemed to be coming from inside me. When Papa came in I told him I did not feel like going to school. He got mad at me for crying and dirtying the sheets. "Don't do this to me, Ian. Please be good. We're already late." My eyes were still red when he dropped me off at school. I thought everybody was going to laugh at me, but nobody said anything. At recess I did not go to the playground. I went to the nurse. I asked her what was wrong with me. She looked me over for a while then said, "There's nothing wrong with you. You are a perfectly healthy boy." I asked her if she could please look again. I showed her my belly button. It was completely closed up by then, full of green sticky stuff. I didn't think that was healthy. The nurse told me I might be coming down with the flu. She gave me some cough medicine. It did not make me feel better.
The next day I could hardly move. The stickiness had disappeared, but my skin felt like it had turned to scales. It was very hard. Papa had to carry me to the car. He did not seem too happy about it. At school I found that I could not bend my knees anymore. It was all hardened up. I could not climb the stairs so I just sat along the corridor. I felt very sad all of a sudden. I tried to cry but my eyes would not let me. I thought maybe they had hardened too. A teacher passed by and asked if I was okay. I wanted to say no but found that I could not move my lips anymore. My whole body had gone rigid. Papa told me to stay in bed that night. He told me I did not have to go to school the next day if I did not feel like it. He tucked me in between the sheets and gave me a kiss on the cheek. When he pulled away I saw that his lips had turned green.
Today is Wednesday. I woke up this morning surrounded by white threads. They are wrapped around me so thickly I can hardly see anything. I cannot move either. My room is a complete mess, fibers everywhere. My bed is still below me, but I am not lying on it anymore. I am hanging from the walls and the ceiling, wrapped in threads. It feels strange but I am not frightened. I have a feeling something good will come from all this. Papa always taught me to look at the brighter side of things. I try to shift position and feel lumps forming behind my shoulders. Perhaps I am sprouting wings. The thought excites me. I think about what I would do if I do get them. I wonder how it would feel, to be able to fly and do whatever I want, go wherever I want. I would show Papa. I would swoop around everybody so fast they wouldn't be able to catch me. Nobody would catch me. I would not even need hands to win at monkey bars.
I awoke feeling very tired. I am prone to naps lately. There is nothing to see now but white threads everywhere. But they haven't completely closed around me yet. I can feel the wind coming in from somewhere. Papa probably opened the window for me, to give me some fresh air. He is always thinking about me. The breeze is still blowing in my face when everything closes up, finally. It seems rather cold outside. But it does not matter. It is warm where I am.
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