XXIII. Cells

Cells are tiny angels; microscopic do-gooders. It occurred to me that being killed is such a horrible thing because of our cells. Yes, because of the act itself, but also because of cells. How they scramble and rush to your aid before anyone else can.

I was trying to open a can in my grandmother’s kitchen with a very large knife. I held the knife with my left hand and tried to cut open the large can with my right hand until it slipped and I stabbed myself in the arm and quite close to my wrist. I thought blood would be everywhere but the hole filled with pink, internal swelling, and blood just stood in the wound. I didn’t feel any pain. After the stitching with glue, I thought about how my body reacted to everything. I was never able to shake the fact that my cells rushed to fix the problem. I guess it’s the sense of knowing their grand design was distorted or maybe that there was danger. I always thought that was so interesting and had never wrote about it before. So many of us get injuries and our cells rush to that part of the body like a dedicated EMT rushing to the scene of an accident to try and help save a life. And cells rush to fight against injuries until the day you die and they die. It makes me sad sometimes to realize that when there’s a terrible accident and terrible injury to a body, the cells that are still alive are still rushing to those injuries trying to rebuild and reconnect and work together to save the life and body parts of their magnificent design or the human being. They rush and rush, trying to fix what’s broken or injured, and if you die they die. And when we die, I think as only an oddity would, they all rush to each other and pull from every part of us our happiest memory and manifest it so we can all cling to it for as long as we can.