text: This is it, my final performance. I can hear the crowd cheering, the slight rumble of the ground when the crowd gets more and more excited. The lights go dim and I take a deep breath, breathing in the cool crisp air of the rink, the smell of sweat and ice, and a memory of when I first started to skate. The music starts, the memory is interrupted and I’m off. I go around the rink once then stop in the middle, I bow to the audience and the judges, and then the music changes and my feet start to move. They move like fish in a wave, like birds in the air, calm and still, but graceful like a ballerina. “I’m on autopilot,” I say to myself, “that won’t cut it.” I start to lean into the music like I am a quarter note among the staff that makes a symphony of sound. The ice is like grace as I carefully etch it with my life story. “Fifteen more measures, only fifteen more,” I say as I build up speed to do a quadruple jump; I have only made it once and that was in a practice run two days ago, I didn’t land it all the way but I did it and it felt amazing. Today will be my first time doing it in front of an audience...and as you might expect I was a little nervous. But not today, I won’t let that happen to me, not today, not ever. I pushed through my nerves with an axle jump. I landed it on the beat, two measures before the big jump. I can feel my heart beating, so hard it could burst. One measure... so I begin my prep. I breathe in and out then JUMP!...one, the cool air rushing past...two, I’m high in the air...three, I breathe, it’s almost over...four, I made it...and then nothing. It felt as if I was floating in the air, nothing could be better. I was still like nothing could move me but the wind. The memory that was deep in my mind when I touched the ice with a skate for the very first time. It felt the same. I landed, it felt perfect, but it was far from. The blade of my right ice skate breaks, my knee hits the ground; I felt my leg burst. I try to catch myself with my left arm but I slip. My arm goes numb, I hear a crack. I hit the ice and couldn’t breathe. I am on my back, and I feel nothing...then the pain set in and I cried out. Blood is rushing down my head and onto the ice. My left arm from the shoulder to the tips of my fingers, I couldn’t feel a thing. I couldn't move, but I desperately wanted to. There was a piece of my skate’s blade underneath my back, I can feel it in my spine. Something was very wrong. As I lay here crying out, as blood fleas from my body, all I can think is that I should have, that I should... I... I... I woke up in the hospital two days later and was in so much pain that I would have rather relived the most embarrassing moment of my life. I wanted to cry, so I did. I cried until my mom, Nadenka, came in and told me that she was there for me and would never leave my side while I laid in this bed. She was the only family member to be with me for the performance. My fiance, Larissa, dad, Boris, two brothers, Victor and Vladimir, and two sisters, Nastasia and Anya couldn’t come due to weather, work, or prior engagements. My leg was in a cast. I could feel the metal pins they put into my leg like you are getting a shot and being punched at the same time. I looked to my left. My whole arm was in a cast. I had five pins in my shoulder, four in my elbow, and three in my wrist. I moved my neck, it cracked, it felt good. The liberty of being able to move my neck made me cry again after seeing my leg and arm. I had movement in my neck and right arm, nothing else. Whenever I would take a breath the air would fill my lungs, but the pressure on my spine was too much that I could only take short and small breaths. I have been awake for fifteen minutes and a nurse and doctor and an intern enter my room. The doctor asks if my mom is ok to stay, like a defensive mother bear she says yes. You could hear the disdain in her voice from the question. The doctor spouted some words about what had happened, but I knew what happened, I was there. He then tells me about treatments I can try and what they will do to improve my situation. I wanted to ask if I would ever be able to skate again, but the way the doctor was talking made me think that I would be lucky if I could walk. I couldn’t stand his voice, the way he didn’t care about how I would never walk or skate. He kept going on and on about how I was paralyzed from the waist down due to the piece of skate that cut into my spine. He said that the shard hit my spinal cord in just the right place to cause me to be paralyzed. My mom couldn’t speak. She just looked at me like a mother would after hearing something like this. I didn’t want to hear it. I didn’t want to accept it. Why, why me. All I did was skate and help people so why did the universe decide to take away the thing I love most away. I couldn’t take it, I yelled, “WHEN WILL I SKATE AGAIN!” The room went silent, the hospital staff just looked at me with the look you would give a child who didn’t understand what you said. My mom just looked at me with pain in her eyes and she couldn’t stop holding my hand like she was keeping me tied down to the world. The doctor in his clean white coat and dark slicked-back hair finally spoke. “Listen, Alexei, there is no easy way to put this... you are paralyzed from the waist down. The nerve damage is too extensive for us to repair, and it won’t be able to heal itself either. I’m sorry but you will never be able to skate again. It would take a miracle for you to even walk again, but Alexei, I’m sorry there is nothing more we can do other than heal your bones and teach you how to adjust to your new way of life.” “Leave me,” I said “I want to be alone, I... I need time to think” The doctors left the room and it was just me and my mom. “My darling Alexei, my darling boy,” my mother said in her thick Russian accent. “Please just leave me, I just want time to think, please.” My mom left the room and said she would just be outside if I needed her. When she left the room was quiet, just the constant beep of the heart monitor I was hooked to. It was nice, having the room to myself. I started to cry, not because of the pain of my body, but for the loss of the one thing in life that I held closest to my heart. Ice skating has been there for me from when I was five years old to now. I’m twenty-five, skating has been with me for twenty years it's all I know. For me, life has ended. I'm just a husk laying in a world that offers me nothing. I offer the world nothing. The next day Larissa, my fiance, burst into my room. Tears were streaming down her face. She collapsed at my bedside as if she had been shot. She was crying harder now. We sat in my room for what seemed like an eternity, then Larissa lifts her head and starts to speak. “My love, my dearest love Alexei. I was so worried, so scared. I... I just wanted to hold you in my arms and never let you go. I should have come. I should have come to see you, maybe then we would be in a restaurant right now eating, drinking, and laughing.” She starts to cry again, “We will get through this together. I love you. There is nothing you can do or say to make me leave you. I will always be here for you. I leaned on you for years now it is your turn to lean on me.” She grabbed my right hand and bowed her head. Her silk-like hair fell over her face. I missed the feel of her hair. I would comb it out for her at night after she had taken her shower, or I would braid it while we watched a movie. “There is room on the bed,” I say, “if you would like to sit with me.” She gets up from her knees. She moved her blond hair out of her face, it fell behind her back, almost to her waist. The bed was big enough for three, for when I had to be moved and more testing had to be done. She gets in the bed on my right side. She lays inside my arm and I hold her. Her face was facing mine and she kissed me. We then both fall asleep, the warmth of each other and the love we have made life seem bearable for a few moments. * * * * * * * * * * * * * I was finally out of the hospital. The smell of freshly fallen snow filled the air. The sky was clear and the sun was out. It was noon. A car was waiting for me and Larissa. We got in. Our destination was a physical therapy treatment center. The car pulls out of the hospital parking lot and turns north onto the street. The center was only four kilometers away, a quick drive. I soaked in every minute of the drive. Looking out the window, seeing the sky, snow, trees, and people. It felt so good just to be out. The freedom, so brief, but so fulfilling. We pulled into the center, the drive was up. My door was open and a ramp laid in front of me. I wheeled myself with one arm down the ramp. Larissa came up behind me and started to push me. “Please,” I said, with a voice that sounded like a wounded wolf. “I told you no matter what, you can’t push me away. I’m here and I am going to help you no matter what the cost is. I will be here.” Larissa said with a smile on her face. A nurse was waiting for us by the door. Above her, a sign read Physical Therapy Treatment Center in Russian Letters. She let us in and led us to my room. The room wasn’t large but wasn’t small. It had enough room for me to move my wheelchair around so that I could go to either side of the bed, into the bathroom, and up to the window. I was on the top of a six-story building, there was a courtyard in the middle, and a place to sit on the roof. From the roof, you could see the Ural Mountains. They were in the East, I was in Yekaterinburg, Russia. My home town, Moscow was 1,790.6 km away. The drive home would take 24 hours of nonstop driving. It was a two to a three-day trip back home. My mother left the hospital and went to go meet my father and siblings. Once I was settled in, a nurse came in to talk to me about what my stay would be like. Larissa was sitting on my right like she always does. As the nurse talked she mentioned that the process would be slow but the time was needed for the muscles and tissue to heal properly. She said the normal time was six to eight weeks for a normal patient, but in my case, it would take five to six months. Larissa couldn’t handle it anymore, she burst out screaming at the nurse, “We already spent nine weeks in the hospital! Why can’t you do something to make him better in the six to eight weeks!?” The nurse took a step back and talked to her calmly about when something this extensive happened to someone, it would take more than the normal time. Larissa understood and asked for the nurse’s forgiveness. She asked me if she could leave to collect her feeling and use the Lady’s room. I nodded and she left the room. A few minutes after Larissa left the room my family burst in, tears in their eyes. It had been almost been a whole two months since I had seen my siblings. Vladimir, he goes by Vlad, Victor, Anya, and Nastasia, we called her little Stasia. The four of them were all the same age, nineteen. They are quadruplets, with two identical pairs. They all came to my side and kneeled on the ground. They were so happy to see me. “We were so worried, we never stopped thinking about you,” Vlad said with love in his voice. “There is so much to tell you! You won’t believe the news little Stasia has!” said Anya in an excited tone. Victor started to talk, “Your dog, Katya misses you very much.” “I miss her too Victor,” I said looking at him. Stasia stared at me with an intense look and a hand on my shoulder, “I have some news that will brighten your day. Dimitry and I are...” Boris, my father, burst into the room, “Sorry I’m late, I had to find a parking space. They also said you were on the fifth floor, not the sixth.” I laughed, “Papa! I’ve missed you so much.” “You’ve looked better, I hope they have been keeping you fed. You look skinny.” My father said with a laugh and a smile. As they all shared what had happened in their lives the past few months my mind started to drift to a world where I had my legs back. I longed for that world, my heart was pounding trying to leave this world and go to the one where I was perfect. My face was getting red, tears started to swell up in my eyes. I tried so hard to keep my emotions in, but they swelled like a tsunami coming to destroy a city. I couldn’t take it anymore, I yelled out, “WHY!” My family stopped talking and stared up at me. I spoke, “Please, everyone. Please leave me.” They got up and left the room. They were reluctant to leave but I pushed for them to leave the room so I could cry and wallow in my sorrow alone. This was my burden to bear. I was finally alone. Alone. Why did I have to be alone? I wanted to walk, run, SKATE, but I knew that I would never be able to. I cried out, “WHY!? PLEASE, PLEASE GIVE ME MY LEGS BACK!” I cried with the voice you cry with when you lose your mother or a wife. I was in a hole, no light, no sound, only the screams of my pain and agony, suffering for all of eternity. I was in my own Hell. I cried out for help, but who could help me? No one was coming to make me whole again. The thought of not being able to ice skate again hit me like a bullet to the heart. I cried out, again and again, nothing could be worse, and nothing will get better. I laid in my bed screaming and crying. My family down the hall. Victor started to head to my room but halfway down the hall, he stopped when he heard me say, “I WISH I WAS DEAD! I WISH I HAD JUST DIED ON THE ICE! JUST LIKE MY LIFE HAD!” He fell to his knees, unable to control himself. He wept. My father came to comfort him, but it was too hard to hear the words that I screamed that he fell to the ground as well. The last thing I said before I blacked out was, “Please... I... I can’t do this. My leg is gone. My life. Please let me die!” With tears in my eyes and my heart ready to give up I said, “I want to let go.” I don’t know who I called out to whether it was a god or just the universe, but I let go and they took me with them. By: Memphis L. Haven