Prompt: Memory Of A Physical Injury

This prompt originates from this list.

Write about a memory of a physical injury.

I was in junior high school, perhaps 6th or 7th grade, I don’t remember which. Recess was going on in the courtyard after lunch was over. I had no one to hang out with and typically found a spot by the fence to stand or sit by to wait out the time until everyone was herded back inside for class.

As I crossed one part of the yard to get to the fence, I wasn’t paying attention to a boy as he ran right into me, knocking me to the ground. My glasses fell from my face, and since I was near-sighted, I could hardly see anything without them. The immediate thing I felt first was intense pain. My hand was barely scratched and had some dirt on it, but it was my knee that ached. I have long forgotten which knee it was. A girl I knew from grammar school came to check up on me. We hadn’t been friends in a long time, mostly because I didn’t know how to talk to her after not being in contact for a while, but she seemed worried about me getting hurt. The boy who was responsible seemed kind of shell-shocked and unsure of what to do. Many other students stopped what they had been doing to gather around in a circle to take in what was happening. I disliked the attention. The girl yelled at the boy for running into me. I got my glasses back at some point and went to the nurse’s office. There, the nurse patched up my knee. The late bell rung as I began hobbling my way up the stairs to class. It stung every time I bent my knee to take a step up. The pain reminded me so much of a time when I was much younger and had scrapped both of my knees at home in the backyard. For weeks after, I couldn’t walk up any set of stairs without feeling like my kneecaps were being stabbed every time I bent them. I got to class but I don’t think I said anything to the teacher about what happened, although I did give him the note from the nurse explaining why I was late.