INITIATIVE
By M.W. Hamel
The majority of Katy’s life had been easy. Popular, pretty, outgoing and liked by all. She was the one in-crowd person that was nice to the losers and rejects. The sweet sensitive virginal princess. She dated the jocks who had smaller brains than they did cocks. Maybe it was a secret desire to make her father happy. He loved sports.
Katy was a proud member of the varsity cheerleading squad. She wanted her college applications to be perfect, sublime, so she was in the student council, on the debate team, track team, everything she could get her pure white hands on.
Her parents were wonderful in person and unhappy in private. Katy simply took life as it came, a smile on her face. Then the accident happened. It doesn’t matter how it happened, although it probably should. When she woke up two weeks later they told her she would be in a wheelchair for the rest of her life. At first she fought, convinced that the doctors were wrong, pretending that she would be an inspiration to millions by sheer determination. She was wrong.
It took three years for Katy to accept that her legs would never move, that from her chest down everything inside was slowly dying. The perfect family she had pictured would never come to life. Her friends came by, but eventually they all moved away, college and careers and future spouses calling.
Katy had never been very sexual, but one afternoon she suddenly realized she would never feel another person in that way. She was slowly collapsing in on herself. Then she started volunteering, encouraging others in wheelchairs, other paralyzed souls. It helped for a little while, but the thoughts kept coming back. It wasn’t about walking or running or jumping. People that could walk would never understand. Even the others moving life with two wheels could never truly sympathize. Each was different. Each reason and motivation and instant when everything changed.
She was still beautiful, but the chair kept the men away. At least, the men she was attracted to. Certain guys liked her, but they were the social rejects, the acne-covered losers whom she was always nice to but was secretly disgusted by.
The shouts of the chair bound kids playing basketball warmed her, the quadriplegics slurring jokes made her smile, even the amputees seemed a part of the group. But every night lying in bed, staring at the ceiling, knowing she couldn’t get up for a glass of water, or a late night snack, made Katy think that there are better things than living. It wasn’t what she was missing out on or even what she was going through. It was simply where she was.
She lived through one more day. That night she moved from her bed to the chair and wheeled it slowly into the bathroom. The attendant she had that day would sometimes forget to empty the tub and tonight was the night. Katy sat poised under the doorframe. Maybe nothing made any difference after all. Feeling or no feeling, she would have been there anyway. It wasn’t the situation that drove her to the point, it was simply who she was.
Katy pushed the lever with her hand; the chair moved forward and hit the side of the bathtub. As her face entered the water there was one thought on her mind.
Despite my life, I’ve had the courage to do what most people only dream of.
