The Fragile, The Frail

           "My self keeps slipping away...right into Kage..."

...tried to save myself
but my self keeps slipping away...


~ Nine Inch Nails




I was up at the bright and ungodly hour of 6 am this morning to help my parents load up their cars. They were taking off for five days to Radium, a beautiful little town in the mountains of British Colombia, about a three hour drive from Calgary.

I helped my father get their kayaks onto each vehicle; no easy feat, as those bloody things are a lot heavier than they look. I decided to go in and brew some coffee, both to help me stay awake and so my parents would have something to drink on their long drive out west.

I was in the kitchen pouring coffee into travel mugs when I heard my dad open the front door. “Kage, I need you,” he called. “Quick.”

“Fucking kayaks,” I muttered to myself, but I slammed my feet into my runners and took off out the door, imagining a kayak on the driveway and my dad in a panic.

I clomped along the front lane, trying to cram my feet into my shoes as I went. I got to the gate and saw my mother lying on the pavement, my dad kneeling at her head.

“Shit!” I yelled and broke into a run. I dropped onto the pavement in front of my mum. “Mum. Mum! What happened? Can you hear me?”

My mother stared straight ahead, opening and closing her mouth like a fish out of water. Her glasses lay half a foot away on the pavement, cracked. Her head was lying directly on the driveway.

“Mum! Can you hear me?” I asked, peering into her face. Which should shake anyone out of a coma, since I didn’t bother to take off my makeup last night.

“Yes,” she finally gasped. I breathed a sigh of relief.

“Momma, did you hit your head?” I asked her.

“No,” she said after a moment, still gasping to catch her breath.

We went through the various parts of her body to see where she had landed, what had been injured. I didn’t have a clue what I was doing; I just remembered something about concussions and not letting someone go to sleep. Well, I was keeping this woman bloody awake, if I had to tell her I was pregnant with the Prime Minister’s baby to do so.

Eventually we ascertained that she had caught the toe of her shoe in the pavement and had twisted her back when she fell, bouncing off the back of Dad’s truck before she hit the concrete. She had scratched up her arm pretty badly but it wasn’t broken, and though she was already getting sore, we were able to get her up and into the house.

As Dad and I placed her gently on the couch, I couldn’t help but congratulate myself for my cool head in a crisis. Good thing I was so in control of my emotions, I thought proudly, good thing I didn’t really feel anything anymore and could be counted on in a tough situation; good thing I was so cold and hard inside, so far beyond succumbing to my emotions, good thing I was so -

Dad walked away to get some Tylenol, and I suddenly threw my arms around my mother and began to cry hysterically. “Mummy, oh god, Mummy,” I howled as I sobbed into her neck. “When I saw you on the pavement, I thought you were dead. I’m so glad you’re okay, Mummy. I’m so glad you’re okay. I’m so glad you’re okay. I'm so glad you're okay.” I kept repeating it over and over as I wept all over my mother’s shirt.

Poor mum. “There, there, Kage,” she said softly, patting my head and still trying to catch her breath. “I’m okay, honey. I’m okay. But could you please get off me? I can’t breath.”

“Oh,” I sniffed, and released my death grip upon her. “Right. Sorry.”

As I sat beside her and held her hand, I wondered, Where the fuck did that come from??? This woman and I fight like cats and dogs, we’re always at each other’s throats and I spend half the day avoiding her so we don’t have to fight. So what happened to my cool, emotionless heroism in the face of danger? What happened to “Good thing I don’t feel anything anymore", in-control-of-my-emotions Kage?

Good thing I’m such a bumbling fucking idiot, more like.

And good thing my mummy is okay.