Ayelet Amittay CWA 2010

Ayelet Amittay ‘10 received a BA in psychology and comparative literature from Brown University, Magna Cum Laude, and a Master of Fine Arts from the University of Michigan in creative writing. A member of Sigma Theta Tau International and Phi Beta Kappa, and a published poet, she is a winner of the Elie Wiesel Prize in Ethics for an essay on the holocaust and the Rosalie Colie prize for her thesis. She will graduate in May 2010 and begin her career as a Family Psychiatric Nurse Practitioner. 

Transcript of the reading:

Igloo

Even his blood is against him. It clumps together like kids in his second grade class, the ones who make fun of his trips to the nurse’s office. It blocks off vessels, leaving no room for air. Today the pain hits him in the chest like a bully, and he’s back on the peds floor again, where all the nurses know his name. Another crisis? the blonde one asks.

The colors on the peds floor are bright, and there are a million toys to play with. He is unimpressed. The pain grates on his brain, and he wants the lights off, then on again. He wails. Aides rush in with breathy concern, check the morphine drip, ply him with popsicles. But he’s had enough hands on him today. When his mother teases him about how rude he was to the doctor, he starts to bawl, one eye on me to see what I’ll do. Just try to come near me—I dare you.

I think of his blood, its sickle shapes locking together, squeezing out the air. I want to give him an airy dome, an astronaut’s helmet, nothing but cold clear air easing into his lungs. I want clean and quiet, not this beeping morphine monitor, not the constant inquiry of stethoscopes and pain scales. Without thinking, I say, let’s cover you with the sheet. He doesn’t object, so I gather the sheet he’s kicked off and cast it over him, like a net. Like an invisibility cloak. Like snow covering burnt, hard ground.

A white lump. His sobs grow softer. This is your igloo, I say. No one can come in without you saying so. He stops crying. You let us know, I say, when we can come visit you, igloo man.

A few minutes pass. You can come in now, he says. I poke my head under the sheet.

What a beautiful igloo, I say. Such nice cold air. Take a deep breath.

He does. He shows me around the igloo: his pet polar bear, his swimming pool, his gymnasium, his flat-screen TV. He decides to visit the outside world. If it gets too hot, we agree, he can always go back to the igloo again.

On his hospital room TV, Spongebob Squarepants has wished himself normal, and the wish has come true. Spongebob is round, with no holes, no buckteeth. Look how funny he looks, he says.

Normal looks funny sometimes, I say.

He doesn’t say anything, but when Spongebob’s buckteeth come back, he smiles. At his temple, I can see the steady pulse, the blood beating.