I expected it to hurt. The needle was hot and its point was sharp. It inspired piercing visions of mutilation - frightful to my boyhood mind. My father held my foot while I cringed imagining the needle puncturing the delicate flesh of the underside of my foot. When I was a kid I always managed to get splinters. It must've been the floors in our apartment, because I can't recall a time I've gotten one since. This was a massive splinter too, a great wooden javelin hurled at my foot by Odin. It hurt badly when it burrowed in; I could only imagine what it would feel like coming out.
After a brief period of poking and scraping with the needle from the back of an orange and black Harley Davidson pin, one he'd probably picked up at a local swap meet, he was able to extract the troublesome timber from my paw. It's interesting to consider how something so small and insignificant could cause so much pain. Hangnails, hemorrhoids and paper-cuts; broken glass.
Wrinkles.
As we grow old our lush youthful heads get splintered with grey hairs. An affront to our imagined immortality. A reminder that we're running barefoot against time's hardwood floor.
It's the little things. Gathering slowly, like ants.
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