I Found My Heel at the Foot of an Oak

I FOUND MY HEEL AT THE FOOT OF AN OAK. I remember someone somewhere calling this bone a talus, or maybe it was a calcaneus, maybe that was the word they had used, but I can’t remember who said that, or where I was when I heard it, or what my name was when I still had a use for this part of my body, but I know this bone was mine, that it was a part of me, that at one time I used it for something very often, maybe even every day, but that was before I got lost in these woods I’ve been wondering around in for a very long time. Or maybe it hasn’t been that long that I’ve been here. I can’t remember anything that feels like a yesterday or a last week. Those words don’t really make much sense to me anymore because I haven’t slept for a while. Or maybe I have and I just can’t remember. I don’t know.

This is what I do know: sometimes it’s light out for a while. Then it gets dark. Then it gets light again, and bars of gold sunlight knife through the naked trees and crawl over the quilt of dead leaves on the ground. Every now and then it rains, but I don’t feel anything. The water I mean. That I can’t feel. And the cold, too. I never get cold anymore. But I don’t know if it’s because I can’t feel it anymore, or if it’s because these woods just don’t get cold. I remember there being places like that, woods that don’t ever get cold, but I don’t know who told me that, or where I was when they told me. All I know is I wasn’t here. Or maybe I was and I just can’t remember. Maybe I’ve always been here.

Either way, that’s everything I know. Actually that’s not true. I know some other things, too. I know there are pieces of myself scattered all around here. Or at least one piece, this heel or talus or calcaneus that I just found by this oak. Or maybe this was a knee, my knee? Maybe that was the word they used to describe this thing that was once a part of me. Maybe this was my knee. Whatever it was, every now and then I find these pieces of myself on the ground, and I start remembering things that make no sense. Words, names. Places I’ve never been to but have somehow seen. Places that must exist somewhere outside the woods. But then I get confused or I see a new path that might lead out of the woods, and I decide to move on. There are a thousand winding paths in these woods, and one of them has to be a way out, so I’ve got a lot of ground to cover. There’s no point in staying in one place for too long.

But this time I didn’t do that. Instead, I bent down and looked closely at this piece of myself on the ground. Following this I reached out and touched it, but no matter how much I scratch that spot on the back of my foot, it doesn’t stop itching. So I slip my heel back into my shoe and straighten up in my desk and try to concentrate on Prof. Gardner’s lecture. Moments later the itch gets worse, so I start tapping my heel on the tile floor. My turquoise scrubs swish with each small movement of my leg.

Prof. Gardner stands at the front of the classroom. To her left is a white screen with a projection of a human skeleton on it.

She presses a button on her computer and advances to the next slide, which zooms in on the foot. Now she points with a yardstick at the foot and identifies the bones. Her voice is low and sharp and raspy, like the sound of someone scraping old paint off the side of a house.

She says:

tibia, talus, calcaneus;

navicularis, cuboid;

cuneiforms, there’s three of these, medial, intermediate, lateral, one, two, three;

metatarsals one, two, three, four, five;

the phalanges.

She says:

These are the ones you need to know, ladies. So you should probably write this down.

The girl sitting next to me slides her toe under my tapping heel, and the sound stops. Now I hear nothing but Prof. Gardner droning on at the front of the room.

I turn my head and look at the girl sitting next to me. Her hair is tied up into a blonde pony tail and her eyes are ice blue. Her scrubs are pink. She is smiling at me, smiling in that way a person smiles when she is deeply annoyed and is trying to hide it. Then she whispers a name and some words.

Amanda, chill. Everyone’s getting pissed.

With these words the itch on my heel goes away, but I know that if I sit here for another moment I’m going to scream or burst into tears or jump out the window. So I grab my things and leave the room. Moments later I’m sitting in a locked stall in the bathroom at the end of the hallway and my head is in my hands. I’m trying very hard to cry quietly so no one outside will hear, but I can’t stop up the noise and it echoes loudly off the hard tile floor. Sitting here I try as hard as I can to think of a way to survive this life and this day and all the empty, pointless, identical days to come, but I can’t think of anything except the bad plan, the last resort, the one that never goes away, the one that comes after one last hike in the woods out by Kentor Mountain. Now the bathroom door opens. Hearing this I press my hands over my mouth and close my eyes, but a minute passes and nothing happens, so I open my eyes and scratch the back of my foot. Looking down, I found my heel at the foot of an oak. I remember someone somewhere calling this bone a talus, or maybe it was a calcaneus, maybe that was the word they had used, but I can’t remember who said that, or where I was when I heard it, or what my name was when I still had a use for this part of my body, but I know this bone was mine, that it was a part of me, that at one time I used it for something very often, maybe even every day, but that was before I got lost in these woods I’ve been wondering around in for a very long time. Or maybe it hasn’t been that long that I’ve been here. I can’t remember anything that feels like a yesterday or a last week. Those words don’t really make much sense to me anymore because I haven’t slept for a while. Or maybe I have and I just can’t remember. I don’t know.