I F*cked up my Shoulder

Silver lining? Now I can write exquisite prose about the sensation of injury in real-time because I’m pretty sure my shoulder ligaments are hanging by threads, all cartilage long gone.

Jeff sat at his computer, hesitant to take a selfie with his webcam because he was a middle-aged father who had let himself go a bit. Okay, a lot. His two daughters would be embarrassed, probably his two dogs as well, to say nothing of his wife.

But he lifted his arm, and his sinews stretched at the tear, threatening to unmake his sanity as his shoulder bones did their best to grind his inflamed nerves into dust.

Throbs pulsed like a flaming heart in his shoulder. He held the pose to bask in the agony while clenching his jaw.

After he clicked the take picture button, he lowered his arm, spitting a string of profanity that all in his house heard.

Then he popped ibuprofen, Tylenol, and other medications that shall not be named, in hopes of finding sleep before going to the sports therapist too damn early tomorrow morning to see if he needed surgery or could rehab the offending shoulder.

Either way, he knew this with a surety: he would use Saffa as inspiration and get stronger, to avoid having chronic pain in the second half of his life while finding mental and emotional fortitude.