Stories tagged survivor

A Body Divided, 2

17541754 views33 comments00 favs

I came down with polio on September 15, 1953, a mild, smoky day drawing close to autumn outside of Chicago — which also happened to be the exact date of my parents' twenty-first wedding anniversary. Only six months later the Salk vaccine was already b

A Body Divided, 3

12511251 views00 comments00 favs

A group of nuns arrived in the middle of my first night at Hinsdale Hospital. I guess I must have dozed off when this odd noise, like curtains being moved, woke me up. At first I couldn't make out what that rustling sound was in the hallway outside my doo

A Body Divided, 4

14201420 views33 comments00 favs

After surviving the first night in the hospital, I was put into a shared room to save on expenses, and to make room for the deluge of new cases that were coming in, and that was when I made friends with my roommate, Tommy. He was a boy about the sam

A Body Divided, 5

14131413 views00 comments00 favs

Physical therapy was on the agenda every morning, first thing. A nurse would come to my room from the basement floor where they did physical therapy. She'd wrap me in a blanket and put me into a wheelchair, even though it was obvious I didn't need one to

A Body Divided, 6

13351335 views00 comments00 favs

When I finally went back to school in the fourth grade, after coming down with polio, my classmates were very welcoming, though I couldn't go outside and run around like them yet at recess or lunch time. That would come, just not right away. But it was th

Strange Justice

132132 views1616 comments1212 favs

I’m not who I expected to be.

Play

7272 views22 comments00 favs

A violent act strikes at the heart of a family, and Mila seeks refuge in a private boarding school. It is her memories of her neighbor friend, Jerome that comforts her. If only she could return to their play, the world would be a better place.

The girl laughing in the dictionary.

10841084 views44 comments33 favs

Trigger Warning.