Bruises

I hit my shin against the bookcase in my office yesterday, and now there's a horrible purple-green bruise where the desk corner banged my leg. I greatly dislike bruises. No, Severus, you don't "greatly dislike" them, you abhor them. You'd think that I'd be conditioned to them by now. When I was rather young, I would often receive large and disgusting bruises at the hands--and belt, and cane, and shoe, and other objects I've either forgotten or wouldn't care to list--of my father. It's not he was especially vicious, though I suppose it's all relative--it's more than my skin is especially sensitive. Therefore, I bruise easily. Any barely credible therapist would tell me that I'm simply attempting to rationalize the painful trauma that I received as a youth, but you know what? I don't have a therapist. Whether I need one or not is debatable, but...I'm not getting one any time in the foreseeable future. I'm too private for that sort of guts-spilling hanky-clenching navel-gazing. At any rate, back to bruises.

During my school years, I received many bruises. Wands sometimes aren't enough when you want to send across the message that someone is wrong and bad and not welcome. Also, I was very awkward and prone to tripping and bumping. I still am, though it's not so pronounced as it was when I was going through puberty. Those were difficult years. For so many reasons. And then I was a Death Eater. I'd like to leave it at that. If I must say something, I'll say that it's very difficult being a Death Eater. All these years later and I still can't talk about it. The Dark Lord's gone, and I can't even say his name. It's a weakness, and it's an idiotic one, and I know that I need a catharsis of it, but I just can't pull it off. Oh well, it's not all that important. At Hogwarts, the bruises have been few, which seems to make each one all the more difficult for me to bear because they're so unexpected. Let's take the example of the bookcase--I walk in, march up to in bookcase in order to find a certain spellbook, and I whack my leg against the side of the case due to sheer carelessness. For a millisecond, there is nothing--then comes the gasping pain, and the tears in the corners of the eyes (that of course would never drop, I don't cry), and then the pain seems to spread and dull and after a while it is gone. That part doesn't remind you of anything, it simply exists--you can only concentrate on the pain. All else is blocked out. I suppose that's the appeal of self-induced pain, though how would I know?

At any rate, for a while you're just fine. You may even forget that you've been injured. However, at a certain point, usually the next day, you notice the bruise. And then you remember the pain. It's not a clean thought like the first time around, it's sort of a torturous ghost, which I realize makes no sense but I can describe it any way I want so that is how I shall describe it. But that's not nearly the worst part about bruises--oh, no, the worst part is that they all look the same. Therefore, you don't just think about the bookcase, your devious brain forces you to remember having your arm twisted by Sirius and being whipped by your father. Every cut is different, which is one of the reasons I don't have a similar problem with scars and scratches--but bruises are unfair. I don't appreciate being forced to think. That's the point of writing things down and putting them in Pensieves--you can ponder the past at your leisure. Well, now I'm off to bed--in the morning, the bruise will still be there, but I can be partially consoled in that it will go away soon. But there will be more.