21 March, 2006

Through the looking glass

Composed a post in my head on the drive home from work today. But it turned out to be unusable because it was such a reflection of my state of mind lately: disjointed and messy. I derived a lot of satisfaction, though, by coming up with great adjectives like "putrid" and "repugnant".

There are three major events going on at work at the moment, and they're bringing out the worst sides of human nature. I've got six days left at the office and on days like today this is a happy realization.

I'm a bit worried about S. He had a virus over the weekend which seems to have wiped him out. He's complaining that his legs hurt and then fell asleep at 4:30 this afternoon and hasn't been up since.

He might just not be fully recovered yet-- he's had gymnastics and swimming with school and soccer practice in the span of two days. Perhaps we've let him do too much too soon? Which in hindsight seems stupid but he usually bounces back so quickly!

Soccer practice was held indoors yesterday evening. B and I sat in the pub with a couple of other parents and watched the boys go through their drills. At one point the burly coach comes in with one of the seven-year-olds and dumps him off: he's fallen, says his arm is hurt, take care of him, will you?

It becomes pretty obvious that the boy is not faking. He's pale and quiet and withdrawn-- luckily he knew his dad's GSM number. I got some ice from the bar and we kept talking to him, trying to distract him.

Dad arrives, and the coach magically reappears. There were several testosterone-laden statements exchanged. A couple of proud comments about the fact that the kid hadn't cried. And then the father took him home.

I am absolutely convinced his arm was broken.

The image of his small pale face haunted me all night long...

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