AUTHOR'S NOTE: All of my stories are my intellectual property. I have posted them to share with you, the reader. You will make no attempt to claim my work as your own under any circumstances.

Leprosy

A story about one boy's experience with leprosy, written for children. 

March 29, 2000. 

I remember July.  It was just before bedtime and Mommy and Daddy had just come into my room to kiss me goodnight.  They said that, the next day, after breakfast, we were going on a trip.  I grinned big and hardly slept.  I love surprises.

The next morning, I ran downstairs, made myself a bowl of cereal, and waited for Mommy and Daddy to get up.  I got pretty bored.  There were cartoons on, but I was more interested in the commercials.  Mommy and Daddy didn’t tell me where we were headed.  Should I pack my swim trunks or snow shoes?  I kept looking at the vacation-people on the commercials.  Soon, I would be just like them.

They got up eventually, kissing and laughing, and carrying glasses from their room.  I stood around in the kitchen, in the way, hoping they would tell me how to pack.  About a thousand commercials later, they did.

Mommy stood in the doorway smiling at me.  I couldn’t help it; I smiled back.  Daddy said we had lots of money now.  He had just gotten a big check from some really rich guy named Lottery.  He said we were getting a boat he had picked out.  (I guess this Mr. Lottery guy must have been real sick for a long time.)  We were going to be explorers.  Now I was really excited!  Real live explorers on a boat like pirates.  But Mommy said pirates were kind of bad because they had to steal to get money.  Then Daddy said something about taxes and made his you’re-in-trouble face, but Mommy pinched his bottom and he smiled again.  We packed most of our clothes and some of my toys and books.  Then we went to pick up the boat.

The boat was huge!  A sailboat with bedrooms inside of it and a barbecue grill near the back.  The boat salesman was very happy to see us.  He gave me lots of lollipops.  About 15 lollipops later, we loaded our stuff into the boat.  Mommy said this was going to be our house for awhile.  I cried a little, already missing my friends; but Mommy said that friends never really go away, so it was more like “see ya later” than “goodbye.”  That made me feel a little better.  Plus, I was going to be rid of that mean kid in my class who was almost as tall as my teacher, and twice as wide.  I was an explorer now.  Time for adventure.

The best thing about living on a boat is no bedtime.  Daddy taught me about stars and constellations.  Mommy taught me about the animals that live in and near the ocean.  I also learned how to take care of the boat.  Even though cleaning the deck and wrapping the sails was not much fun, I liked being a part of the explorers’ team.

One day, we found an island that looked empty.  Exploring is so much fun.  Mommy said maybe the next day we could check it out.  Today, she said, was for getting supplies.  We went to a dock on a big island near the little empty one.  People were wearing long dresses, even the boys.  Mommy said something about Rome and we bought some long brown dresses and jewelry made out of shells.  We changed clothes, and Mommy wrapped her hair in this long scarf so only a little of her hair peeked out by her forehead.  Daddy said she looked like the prettiest woman on the whole island.  Mommy smiled and her cheeks got kind of pink.  Daddy winked at me.  He knows all sorts of things about how to make Mommy smile.

That day, we bought fruits that grew on the island and big barrels of food that we could take with us so we would have enough to last a while.  We were eating fish and something like a coconut but red inside at a long table with lots of other people when Daddy started talking to this man.  Daddy asked a big man with bones in his nose and paint on his arms about the little island we saw.  The man looked scared, started mumbling something I couldn’t understand, and was waving his hands around.  Other people got all upset too.  Daddy said some things in his there’s-no-monster-in-your-closet voice.  They seemed to calm down.  Mommy calls that “charisma.”  The painted man told us about a curse on the little island.  A hundred years ago, the people who lived on the little island didn’t pray right, and their gods punished them by killing them.  Some people escaped to the big island when the gods were not looking.  The painted man’s family was with them.  Everyone is afraid of the little island, you could tell because they all nodded as the painted man told his story.  They think that the curse is still going on, even after all this time.  They told us that we shouldn’t go there, even though their gods are different from ours.  Daddy explained it to me.  He said that they believe that their gods are in charge here because this is their home.  He said it’s kind of like when I go to my friend’s house and his parents are in charge when my parents are not with me.  I guess that makes sense, for parents, but these are gods.  I said I wanted to go see the little island and the painted man got all upset again.  Daddy said no and the painted man got all calm again.  Mommy whispered something to me about charisma again.  I smiled.  Us explorers have lots of cool secrets.

After that, we pretty much went to bed and nothing happened.  Just as the sun was coming up, Daddy woke me up and asked if I was afraid of the little empty island.  I said “no way!”  So he woke up Mommy and we took the little rowboat from the side of our big boat to the little island.  I was super excited. 

I helped pull the little boat up onto the sand and we started exploring the little empty island.  We walked around all day looking at shells by the water, swimming, climbing trees, and doing other fun island stuff.  It was pretty much like being at the beach, but with no ice cream store close by.  It was warm and not raining, so Mommy said we should sleep on the little island tonight and go back to our boat the next day.  Mommy and Daddy were saying we should be heading back home pretty soon, and that this had been a great vacation. We were looking at the stars and the moon.  I fell asleep. 

The next morning, Mommy was screaming real loud.  I thought a spider must have crawled up her nose, she was so loud.  Daddy was crying and holding his foot and kind of rocking a little.  I was still sleepy, but Mommy’s screaming would have woken up anybody.  I asked what was the matter.  She seemed all right except that she was screaming.  Then Mommy started saying over and over again “toe, toe, toe, toe.”  She was really crying now.  I looked at where she was looking and saw that Daddy’s toe was what she was upset about.  Maybe he had a spider on his toe, but that didn’t seem right.  Daddy moved his hand to show me his foot.  His face was all white when I looked at him and his eyes were real big.  I saw his foot then.  One of his toes was gone and kind of snail-colored around the edges where it came off.  Now I was pretty scared too.  What kind of monster bites off your big toe while you’re sleeping?  I started looking around and getting ready to run in case I saw it.  Mommy had cried enough, I guess, and she fell down on her knees, started shaking her head and saying “the curse, it’s the curse, oh my gods, the curse.”  But Daddy, missing toe and all, just hugged her and told her that he would be fine and there was no curse.  Well, I was starting to wonder about that curse myself.  I was ready to go back to the boat and I said so.  Daddy thought that was a good idea and Mommy nodded too.  We got up, Daddy leaning on Mommy so he could walk.  He could not seem to balance very well.  We got into the rowboat and started back for our boat by the dock of the big island. 

Mommy was real happy to be back on the boat.  The people who lived on the big island were pretty mad and scared though. They were throwing things at us and shouting.  We left quick.  I was steering the boat away back out to the ocean since Daddy could not stand very well.  Mommy was putting bandages on Daddy’s foot.  Then, they took a nap while I got us back out into the deep parts of the ocean.  When they woke up, Mommy’s little finger was lying on the floor beside her, looking like a little undercooked sausage.  They were crying again and I was starting to get pretty worried.  I was the only one left with all my fingers and toes.  Mommy started yelling about the curse again, and why did we ever go to that little island, and she just wanted to go home where there were hospitals and not water.  But of course yelling didn’t put her finger back on; it only made Daddy yell too.  Eventually, their fighting turned to crying and hugging each other and hugging me.  I said I had to drive the boat and they should go bandage Mommy’s finger.  Truth is, I really didn’t want that stuff touching me, but I didn’t want to hurt their feelings. 

The next couple of months, both Mommy and Daddy got real sick.  Mommy called it Leprosy.  Their fingers and toes kept falling off, so they could hardly move around.  They stayed on the deck when the weather was warm and slept in their room when it rained.  I drove the boat. When I wasn’t driving the boat, I was cleaning up their messes, keeping the boat clean, and making us all food.  I almost wished I had a bedtime again.

Then one day Daddy’s nose fell off.  I never wanted to look at him after that.  He was scarier looking than any monster under any kid’s bed.  It was only a few weeks later that Daddy died.  We were about three weeks from getting back to our house.  I knew because Daddy had taught me how to use the stars to tell where you were and how to get where you wanted to be.  Mommy said we should wrap him in blankets and put him in bed so we could bury him when we got home, so we did.  A few days later, there were flies all around him and I was pretty sure they were going to get in our food and make us starve to death.  I told Mommy we had to bury him in the ocean.  She cried a lot when I said that, but I think maybe she had been thinking it too.  She was really sad, but helped me push him over the side of the boat.  She watched his body for a long time as I sailed away from it.  The next day, Mommy died.  I was scared to touch her.  I still had all my fingers and toes and wanted to keep it that way; but she was my Mommy and I had to do what was right.  I wrapped her in blankets and pushed her over the side of the boat.

I cried.  I was all alone.  I started thinking about what people would think when I got back home.  I was afraid.  I was thinking about what my friends would say, my Grandma, my teachers.  Nobody would believe that we sailed to a little island, that there was a curse on the island, that my parents got the curse but I didn’t, that they died and I sailed the boat back home by myself.  Nobody would believe that, even me.  They would say that I killed them.  They’d make me go to jail forever.  I couldn’t do that.  I just couldn’t.  Besides, what if I did have the curse and I just didn’t feel it yet.  I couldn’t give that to my friends or my Grandma.  I had to go.

I decided that I could never go back home.  I could just see the land up ahead when I turned the boat around.  I sighed but did not cry.  I had important things to do now.  I had to figure out where I was headed.  I sailed the boat back into the deep parts of the ocean and picked a direction.  That way.  That was where I would live.