Calm

He won't stop screaming.

He's only been stabbed 4 times. It can't hurt that bad.

He isn't even real. At least that's what my parents said.

Even if the people in the television screen aren't real, there are a lot of shows showing them in pain. I don't know what pain feels like, so I am a little curious about what it's like. My mom says I have con-gen-it-al an-al-ge-sia. That means I can't feel pain.

All of my friends say that makes me lucky, but am I really?

The man on the screen keeps screaming as the masked person drags him into another room, blooding pouring from the stab wounds and making streaks on the floor. Maybe I am lucky, that man doesn't seem to like being stabbed.

But I want to know what that pain feels like, what any pain feels like. So one day when I was younger, I tried crashing my bike to see if it hurt. It didn't. My parents ran over and asked what happened and what hurt, both of their voices filled with fear. I said 'nothing.'

'He's in shock,' said my mother, 'We need to bring him inside.'

She grabbed my arm and ran me inside. We passed a mirror and I saw my face, covered with my own blood. I felt perfectly calm, content. But I felt no pain.

I still feel no pain.

Even after I tried what the television showed. Even after I stabbed myself. I feel no pain.

Do you know how hard it is to not know something everyone else knows? Not knowing an inside joke that everyone knows except you.

The man on the screen is crying now. I'm crying, too. I don't know if it is from pain or lack-there-of. The man on the screen covers one of his stab wounds with one hand and tries to crawl away. I cover my stab wound and crawl towards the bathroom, leaving the knife covered with my blood in the tv room.

It's harder to move with the stab on my side. It doesn't hurt, it just feels wet and kind of sticky. When I pull myself to the full body mirror I look at what I've done.

My favorite shirt is covered with the blood from when I tried to cover the wound. I touch one of my hands to my face and drag it across, trying to copy what I saw on the man-on-the screen's face. It's such a beautiful color, such a calming color.

I don't feel the need to scream like the man on the screen did. In fact, I feel perfectly calm since looking in the mirror. I don't need to cry to let out my feelings. I don't need to feel pain to fill my curiosity.

I know everything is fine, and everthing will be fine.

Thanks to this beautiful blood.