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Edited on Thu Mar-09-06 08:40 PM by oneighty
Just as I was emptying the second beer bottle of kerosene onto the wood in the pot belly coal fired stove there was an explosion and I was engulfed by yellow fire.
The damage was instant but not yet painful. I made my way out of the cellar to the upstairs. By then the pain was becoming intense. My older sister Lois then twelve years old pointed at me and laughed. Later she explained she laughed because my hair was gone and my face was all black.
I went into a bed room and laid on the bed sobbing and shaking with pain. No longer able to stand the pain I went outside in the freezing cold where the pain was less.
I walked the long drive way to Carl's house across U.S Route Five from us. At the door I asked Carl's mother if Carl could come out and play. Carl's mother was named Genny. She looked at me; "Eddie what happened to you?" Through tears and blackened cracked lips I tried to explain. But words were not there, only sobbing.
Genny pulled me into the house. In the house it was warm and the warmth increased the intensity of the pain.
Genny calmed me down and holding me tight in her lap she applied soothing wet baking soda to my burns. She continued this treatment for hours. I lay there whimpering like a puppy dog.
Over the ensuing weeks I grew better, my hair grew back my open sores healed. I missed several weeks of school. I lived on tiny bits of bread I rolled into a ball and forced between my swollen and cracked lips. With a straw I drank soup and water.
Oh how I suffered. After a period of several years of growing older the visible scars faded away. The other scars the kind that you cannot see are still there.
I was nine years old that year. I will never forget you Genny.
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