Today’s words: Teeny, Boring, Edge, Iron
Word count: 464
Completion time: 32 minutes
Summary: Even if something you say or do wasn’t meant to hurt someone and it does...it makes sense to apologise
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Accidents vary in their severity; some people swerve to avoid another car and are admitted to hospital, some slip on spilt liquid without a hazard sign, and some slam somebody else’s fingers in a door when they’re not paying attention. All of these are accidents, but all deserve apologies. None of them meant to cause any harm but once they do, the damage has already been done.
Astra’s young life was boring to any outsider, but to her, it was full of adventure, strange lands, and long journeys that would take days to get to. Once she closed her eyes, she was on a pirate ship with a loyal crew, next she’d be in Disneyland posing with Minnie Mouse, and on weekends she’d pop to space play hide and seek with aliens on Mars; it was a good life. Being partial to daydreams however, her teeny body was usually unaware of its surroundings: she’d bump into doors, people would trip over her in the street, and she’d need her name repeated at least three times before she answered (seven if she was in space, it was pretty far away after all).
One hot July afternoon whilst her father was ironing, Astra was fighting a tiger who she eventually managed to calm and befriend. As she put out her hand to stroke the striped feline, her real hand crept over the edge of the ironing board, retreating hastily when it made contact with the scalding iron. Snapping her eyes open and looking at her hand in confusion, she began to cry, then wail like her lungs would give out.
It was the first real pain that she had ever felt, it was nothing compared to a scraped knee or being knocked over in a department store by frantic shoppers; it felt closer, like it would never stop hurting.
Her father put the iron down and regarded her with a puzzled expression. “What’s wrong?”
“It hurts!” she cried between sobs that were heaving her whole body.
“I didn’t mean to hurt you, so why are you sad?”
She continued to cry, holding her hand out for him to soothe.
“It was just an accident, I don’t understand why you’re so hurt. I was only ironing, I wouldn’t hurt you on purpose, Daddy isn’t like that.”
“It hurts, it hurts!”
“Stop overreacting. You’re acting like I meant to hurt you, darling, but I didn’t. All I wanted to do was iron. It’s your fault that you got hurt, don’t make me feel bad for your pain.”
He said all of this with a blunt, even slightly offended, tone.
He hadn’t meant to hurt Astra, but he had and that was blatant...yet, because it wasn’t his intention, he didn’t feel like he should be to blame.
Sound familiar?
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