Dirty Work
Memory is a funny thing.
I was probably around 6 years old. One day I was in the yard behind our house finding any way to occupy myself. It was an unfenced patch of green met at the back property line by tall grass. I can't recall what exact time of year it was but the small square of concrete that sat right outside the glass sliding door from the living room was covered in pine needles, so I suppose that suggests autumn. Deciding to clear the space, I took my hands and methodically brushed every last one of them off into the surrounding grass. Proud of my work, I lifted my hands to find
blood.
It was a shocking amount to my young self. Both of my hands were coated in a thin layer of it which was still more than I'd ever seen in my young life. I'd only ever experienced small cuts and scrapes to this point. I ran to my mother crying and showed her my wounds. She took me into the bathroom and ran my hands under the sink. The strange thing was, when we pulled my hands out from under the faucet, there were no cuts, no scrapes, no wounds at all. I was confused but didn't think to question it aloud.
About 20 years later I brought this experience up to my mother on a whim who looked at me confused and just said, "That's not possible. There weren't any pine trees where we lived."
Weird.