suzanna-kollinz-acliq-oyunlari-1-hisse-eng

er always says? The first treatment for a burn is cold water?
That it draws out the heat? But she means minor burns. Probably
she’d recommend it for my hands. But what of my calf?
Although I have not yet had the courage to examine it, I’m
guessing that it’s an injury in a whole different class.
I lie on my stomach at edge of the pool for a while, dangling
my hands in the water, examining the little flames on my fingernails
that are beginning to chip off. Good. I’ve had enough
fire for a lifetime.
I bathe the blood and ash from my face. I try to recall all I
know about burns. They are common injuries in the Seam
where we cook and heat our homes with coal. Then there are
the mine accidents. . . . A family once brought in an unconscious
young man pleading with my mother to help him. The
district doctor who’s responsible for treating the miners had
written him off, told the family to take him home to die. But
they wouldn’t accept this. He lay on our kitchen table, senseless
to the world. I got a glimpse of the wound on his thigh,
gaping, charred flesh, burned clear down to the bone, before I
ran from the house. I went to the woods and hunted the entire
day, haunted by the gruesome leg, memories of my father’s
death. What’s funny was, Prim, who’s scared of her own shadow,
stayed and helped. My mother says healers are born, not
made. They did their best, but the man died, just like the doctor
said he would.
My leg is in need of attention, but I still can’t look at it.
What if it’s as bad as the man’s and I can see my bone? Then I
remember my mother saying that if a burn’s severe, the victim
177