JUNE 30TH
My wheelchair is an exoskeleton protecting the soft body offatigue. I get out of bed, walking slowly on my curved foot and my overworked one; the foot that cramps and aches and curls inward onto its edge trying to figure out where it is, to reconnect, and the foot that does more than its share and gets tired, the heroic and sullen foot that steps in to carry the limp. My whole body aches and trembles with what people call fatigue as if it had anything to do with a long work week, a tiresome commute, the ordinary, “boy I’m bushed!” of ordinarily tired people. I carry the fatigue down the stairs to the shed, unlock the shed, unlock the padlocks, unplug the recharger cable, slide into the seat, and suddenly I am uplifted and embraced. Comfortable foam cushions me from below and behind, and I’m surrounded by the yellow ribs of this new body, rest on new leg bones. I relax into this enameled-steel-mid-wheeled statement to the world that I can’t walk another step. I no longer have to tell the people on the buses and trains to get up out of the specially marked blue symbol seats. My new outer shell says it for me. People step aside, apologize for being in my path, stand without being told, so I can be strapped into place for my bus ride. The chair speaks for me, a new and less exhausting form of speech. It’s the shiny carapace that lets the world know my species.
