Synaptic

The final project for this course asked students to compose a work of creative nonfiction using one of the approaches we read and analyzed in the first half of the semester. Elizabeth chose to write a memoir, which uses memories to form a narrative, turning ourselves into a character in order to express some aspect of the human condition. As is often the case, memoirists focus on unsettling or traumatic memories, which can make for difficult writing. Elizabeth’s work is no exception, and I applaud her willingness to address such a life-altering and traumatic moment so honestly.
In her writing, Elizabeth makes good use of figurative language to help us understand the gruesome nature of her experience: : “tanned flesh like an orange rind; “lay like a starfish;” “blurred like an old VHS tape.” To offset the heaviness of these moments, she smartly uses self-deprecating humor to provide levity. The result is a touching memoir that communicates how a few seconds can impact a lifetime.

-Dr. Lance Dyzak

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Red and green bursts showered the night sky in watercolored streams, and the Earth rumbled like trembling hands on a snow globe. Between the thundered boom and lit matches, the air carried the distant chatter of teeth and sloshing liquid against aluminum. Burnt marshmallows and smoke swam through the mid-July air as I trekked across yesterday’s freshly mowed grass. Slouched in a dusty fold-out chair with drooped fabric, I smiled. I loved the Fourth of July. Every year, my grandfather drove eight hours to our small Illinois town with a stack of fireworks and Roman candles. He brought the good shit – fireworks you couldn’t find in a corn- field-ridden town with a population of 9,000. But now I loathed its arrival like a child on the last day of summer.

I was thirteen years old, sunburnt, sporting a newly oversized tie-dyed shirt, with a gooey s’more smashed between sticky fingers. I stuffed my stomach with s’more after s’more until my dad stumbled from the garage with what looked like a mortar-shaped mountain. I zoomed off towards the back porch for a front-row view and watched as rainbowed sparks shot through the atmosphere like a laser show. I wanted to see more, but it was still early, so the rest awaited their space launch until the sky became a darker shade of navy. I reached for a sparkler to hold me over as the adults headed for the garage, which was littered with Bud Light and empty glass bottles of booze. No supervision and a stack of unlit fireworks was a mouse trap, and my teenage cousin fell right into its greedy clasp.

He hungrily dug through the pile and yanked out a hefty black box with the words “Happy Face” slapped in white – cluttered with neon smiley faces of all different colors. How ironic. He slid the designated firework slab out of the cornfield and into the yard, anything for a closer view. He lugged the box onto the grass, strategically placed the canister onto the makeshift firework stand, an old, jagged wooden board, and struck the match until his face flickered like a Jack-O-Lantern. Starry-eyed, I watched as the firework flung its kaleidoscope body into the air – until a surge of wind forced the canister to tip. Bodies scattered, and screams wafted through the air as bursts of red and green bounced like an intense match of ping pong, but I stood there, wide-eyed and motionless, as if my bare feet were grounded in concrete. Alone.

I never threw myself into action, like an over-adrenalized dog scratching to release some pent-up energy, but preferred to stagger back to the sidelines and watch from a distance. Don’t worry, I wasn’t a stalker, but there’s something special about watching someone else’s reaction when you’re not the center of attention. My birthday became something I loathed. I felt like a zoo animal parading around my enclosure while grimy fingers poked and prodded against the glass – judging my every move and expression. Did I stretch my smile wide enough? Did I say the right thing? But when I gave, I didn’t need to speak. I could watch and see as their eyes widened slightly in excitement and the corner of their mouths turned upwards – that’s what I liked. It was my own cinema, jump-cutting through different scenes, so when I stood back and relished in the moment unfolding ahead, I didn’t have to play a role or contort my face with false smiles and raised brows. I didn’t have to be what anyone else wanted – I could be me – just me. But that was all about to change.

I clutched my stomach and belted out a breathy laugh as everyone ran like decapitated chickens to avoid the sparkling bullets – and then it shocked me in the thigh. I was wounded, oozing charred fabric and ripped skin as firework fingers hungrily tore at my tanned flesh like an orange rind, impatient to reveal the pink pith below. I plummeted to the grass, gripping my freshly stung thigh. I felt like I had been pelted by a thousand bees over and over until my leg became its stinger. I couldn’t hear anything. I couldn’t feel anything. My body didn’t feel like mine. My ears rang with buzzing static, and my vision blurred like an old VHS tape. But that smell – that smell I remember.

The air no longer carried the fresh smell of chlorine and melted popsicles – it was thick with the pungent stench of overly charred hotdogs. And by overly charred, I mean a dust pile of charcoal. But a burnt sausage wasn’t responsible for this pollution – it was my thigh, dripping in what looked like congealed ketchup. I lay like a starfish against the grass and laughed until the happiness became sadness and the laughter became a shaky sob. My thigh radiated with an intense pain that spread like a woven web up through my chest. But before I could drain myself even more, my family rushed over like hungry seagulls squawking out, “Are you okay?” What kind of question was that? Of course, I wasn’t okay. My eyes swelled shut and practically bulged from my head, and my thigh was on fire. Yes, I was just peachy.

I grew to dislike affection after my accident. I couldn’t stand the constant questioning and the heads that poked in my bedroom door every ten minutes to ask the same obvious question. Even now, I feel almost claustrophobic around my family and will do just about anything to avoid the suffocation of a hug. Hugs were supposed to feel warm, but it felt ice cold. I think I just hated the attention.

It’s been ten years since my thigh blistered with ash, and if I’m being honest, I couldn’t stand my fear of fireworks. My dog was a far better sport when the firework’s boom wobbled the house walls, but me? I was a terrified, trembling chihuahua glued to the corner of my bedroom. If I felt a surge of boldness, I’d peer out my bedroom window and watch the glittered streams dance. A glimmer of nostalgia and happiness bubbled up like a boiling pot, but I was quick to turn off the stove, shut the lid, and walk away. The drum of my dad’s fist on my bedroom door made it even worse. I refused to feel joy over something that had caused me so much pain.

But I still loved fireworks, even though they scared five-year-old me from the depths. Times like this, I realized just how childish I was. Was I really about to let a firework turn me into one of those cranky toddlers who threw a fit in the middle of Walmart? The thought alone made me cringe. But today was the day I decided to make a change.

It was Saturday, and the mid-March air carried a chill that could only be felt on a brisk autumn night. If I closed my eyes for long enough, I could hear the rustling of leaves skirting across the pavement, but enough autumnal nostalgia because I was on a mission – a mission to rekindle my love for fireworks – in the form of a flimsy stick. I staggered into the garage and reached for a box of sparklers. For a box so light, it felt like a stick of dynamite – I half expected the package to jolt awake and shoot a basketball-sized hole in the roof. My palms were sweaty, and the drumming of my heart pounded through my ears like a bass-boosted car. I wanted to slap my hands over my shoulders and shake myself until the fear spilled from my body. I felt so stupid. If children could enjoy these, then the 22-year-old me should be able to. I shook the box, and the sticks pelted against the cardboard. I clutched the lighter and drug my quivering body over to the same spot that left me with a South America-shaped scar.

For a moment, I was twelve again. No scar. No fear. I could hug my parents without slithering away. I wanted so badly to go back – maybe then, I could be someone my parents were proud of. But the crunch and crack of twigs below my feet startled me – I was still twenty-two. I can’t be serious right now. Am I throwing my body into a fit over a petty strip of wood? Grow up. I stood and rooted myself in the same spot I had been nearly ten years ago and inhaled the sharp spring air until my lungs couldn’t take another puff. The smell of burning leaves consumed my senses, which was far better than the punchy odor of burning flesh – this was already an improvement. I sighed and deflated the pent-up fears lurking in my lungs until they became a limp balloon. I struck my thumb against the lighter and watched the flame flail its orange body in the wind – my scar in my periphery.

The sweltering sting of charred flesh was nothing compared to the aftermath. Shards of fabric from my oversized shirt and ash clung to my thigh, and no amount of ointment could mask the smell or heal the buzzing, dull ache, so I had no choice but to see my dermatologist. I grimaced and sucked my bottom lip between my teeth in a sharp breath as the nurse jabbed seven needles into my fresh wound. She figured seven was enough to numb me for what was next. The nurse grabbed a long metal stick and brought it to my thigh. Looking back at it now, I still have no idea what this tool was besides a torture device. The stick plunged deep into my wound, close enough to reach bone, and cleared out the bits of fabric and ash that swam below my skin. I don’t think the numbing worked because I had never been in more pain in my life.

I held the sparkler to the flame and watched it burst, but before the sparks grew, I threw it on the grass and drug my muddied, worn Converse sneakers over the sparkler. I could feel my family’s eyes scan me from inside the kitchen as I plucked a second stick from the box and relit the lighter. The flame consumed it in bursts of purple. I stretched my arm into a thin line and held the stick far away from my body. The purple transformed into a hot pink, and the sparks licked their way down towards the metal stick my fingers were pressed against. I felt the subtle sting of sparks flick across my skin, but I refused to look at it. I scrunched my face into a tight ball and waited until I felt nothing. I opened my eyes, and the sparks died. It wasn’t so bad. I felt somewhat lighter – invigorated. One stick became two, and two became three. With every spark, my arm moved closer, and my eyes stretched wider. The beginning flame still scared me, but I never imagined I would be standing here with six used sparklers below my feet. I don’t know if I have entirely conquered my fear of fireworks, or if I ever will, but I hope, with enough attempts, twelve-year-old me will feel brave enough to crawl from the depths of repression. The back door creaked open and my parents burst out with wide grins – not now. I wanted to walk back towards the house, but before I could pry my feet from the grass, they wrapped themselves around me in a suffocating squeeze. I hid my smile against the fabric of my dad’s blue shirt. Maybe this wasn’t so bad.