by Teresa Ringholz

Created on: August 23, 2009   Last Updated: August 24, 2009

"O.K., I'm coming up to the sidewalk here, I see those bumps, I know they're there," I say cautiously to myself. "I just have to make it a few more steps and then those bumps won't jump 10 feet in front of me and trip me again and...ouch!" I shudder as I fall to the ground. Add another scrape to my string beanie legs. It seems that the Sidewalk Monster knows exactly when one wound is healed before he plans his next attack.

The Sharp Corner Witch living in the wooden pedestal had an eye out once to put out one of mine. A few inches more and she would have gotten it. I received a deep scar on my face high on my cheekbone instead. Once, that nasty Tree Troll threw me out of his hair; 7 feet onto the ground.

Then that giant Super Slide Snake bit me and took some skin off my arms and back. Someone had the bright idea back then: "Hey, let's erect a 50 foot giant slide, put kids in burlap bags and push them down." Nice idea but what happens when the kid isn't sitting in the bag correctly and loses it on the way down?

Sometimes these unseen phantoms are not entirely to blame for my scrapes and bruises. It seems that no matter what sport is in season, I manage to get some sort of injury and I don't even have to be participating in the game: I got hit in the face with a basketball, slammed in the back with a baseball bat and had my finger sliced with an on coming ice skate.

But no injury in the whole world and no accident in my life could ever be as traumatic as the one I received on that humiliating day in the neighborhood.

On my street we seem to be blessed with large families. In my family there are 5 kids, and then two doors down there's 8, and a few more houses further there are 7. We all range in different shapes, sizes, ages and mental capacities. I'm about 7 right now.

There's this kid, Eddy, one of the oldest boys but he seems a little dumb to me. Everyone picks on him, so I'm not the only one who thinks he's strange. His family's house has quite a large grassy hill in the front yard and we like to take turns rolling down. It's springtime, the grass is soft and new and there's about an hour to kill before I have to go home.

So roll, roll, roll gently down the knoll on to the sidewalk and go up and do it again and here comes Eddy on his bike. Now I know I don't look like a speed bump and I know that under normal circumstance one would have the common sense to brake for one's neighbor but I hadn't reckoned with Eddy. In a split second I thought: "Oh he's kidding, he'll stop, right?"

Wrong. In disbelief I am stuck to the ground paralyzed like a pitiful pylon, a human hurdle, a living obstacle corpse. I suddenly think that the Sidewalk Monster must have a hold on me. Eddy ignores all the warning signs and frantic screams from the others and...rides over my entire body. Yes, from foot to torso to face, Eddy rides on. He never stops once to look back. I don't think he even knows he's done something out of the ordinary.

I on the other hand am crushed. The others chase bright boy down the street, yelling all the way "do you know what you just did?"

It takes a few seconds before I can get up. When I find my feet and stand, I see a galaxy of stars and hear ringing in my ears. I pull out a few stones, which have become embedded into the back of my legs and brush off the dirt. My face is burning and tears well up in my eyes. I slowly waver back home, whimpering all the way.

"MOM...MOM... Eddy...he... ahhhh..." I stagger up to the front porch steps and my Mother comes to the door to meet me. "He.... rode over me...with his bicycle!"

"Yes, I see that dear," and she hides a silent smirk behind her hand, because there between the tears, the gravel and the grass: tire marks on my face!

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