Fields Ablaze

The bonfire blazed as we roasted our hot dogs over the hot flames. Our dogs wagged their tails excitedly as they ran from one Fourth of July reveler to the next, and the fireworks exploded overhead in a myriad of colors. Across the road, on the other side of the barbed wire fence, one wayward rocket burst, instantly igniting the dry Texas grass in the pasture beyond.

Seeing the flames shoot up, my older brother, my older cousin, and I, a 12-year-old girl, ran across the street, my cousin’s bare feet slapping on the hard asphalt while my father and stepfather ran inside to grab supplies to put the fire out with. As we reached the fence on the other side, my cousin picked me up and propelled me over the side in a panic, straight into a cactus patch. On the way over the fence, my arm flailed, driving the hot firework punk I held in my hand directly into my right eye, its burning tip searing my eyeball just before the cactus hit my legs.

Adrenaline pumping, I pulled my pants away from my leg (they were stuck to it by cactus needles), steadied myself, and ran to the fire, quickly stomping part of it out as the pain in my eye overwhelmed the pain in my leg. In the background, my father and stepfather beat at the remainder of the fire with towels and t-shirts. My right eye squeezed shut and watering fiercely, I made my way back to the fence and climbed over, muttering a hasty “I shoved a punk in my eye” in response to my cousin’s concerned questions.

She didn’t know what had happened, of course, while she had waited uncertainly at the edge of the road in the dark with that unique blend of excitement and trepidation raging in her heart that comes along with any potentially devastating situation. Unfortunately, in my haste to find a lighted room with a mirror, I had few answers to give her.

Instead of following me inside, she waited at the fence to interrogate my brother, who was also on the way, but lagging behind. On the way to my father’s house, I held the leg of my pants away from the leg of my body to prevent it from aggravating the needles that still poked out from my skin as well as to keep away the ones that remained in the pants themselves.

When at last I made it into my father’s bathroom, I was relieved to see, after opening my injured eye and looking in the mirror that I could, in fact, still see (albeit somewhat blurrily) out of both eyes. My right eye wasn’t open long, however, as the pain of opening my eye was overwhelming. I laughed, the absurdity of the situation washing over me even as the pain behind my closed eyelid subsided. In a moment of inspiration, a poem came to mind, and I scrambled to find the materials to write it down while it was still fresh. After hastily scrawling it on some random scrap of paper I had found, I picked the remaining cactus needles out of my pants and leg, then rejoined the group to continue our Fourth of July celebration.

Although I no longer have that darkly humorous poem, I still remember the first two, fairly unoriginal, yet incredibly pertinent lines: “I’m about to die; I’ve burnt my eye!” For most of the rest of the night, I was “Laura One-Eye,” who had been punked in the most literal way possible. I had trouble sleeping that night, due to the pain, but by the next morning, my eye had healed enough for my suffering of the night before to be little more than a somewhat hazy memory – a memory that has now lasted for over 25 years.

The fireworks and the camaraderie continued almost every Fourth of July (and still do to this day), but that was the only year that I have had the pleasure of being thrown over a fence so far. Buy hey – there’s always next year!

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