Shape of the Muscle

From where I stood barefoot, on the cold floor of the bathroom, in the middle of the night, still terrified of further punishment, should I move, or even consider sitting on the edge of the bath. I heard the television get switched off and the sound of my father sitting into his chair (see blog 19^th June 2012). I was not so young and foolish as to think I could sit down and still have enough time to hear him get out of the chair to check on me. So I stood and waited. Time passed. Then the reason became obvious for him having me stand in the bathroom and not the carpeted hallway. Even if the carpet we had was that hard-wearing fibrous tight bumps of carpet that left impressions in the knees if you knelt on it. The kind of carpet designed to take the wear and tear of many children for as many years as possible. I found out later that particular carpet was designed for commercial track areas where trolleys were in use. So it was pretty heavy duty. But I was not even allowed to stand on that. For the simple reason I began to experience. The carpet was not cold.

The carpet would not affect the body temperature of the person standing on it. The cold linoleum of the bathroom floor would however. I was probably lucky that this injury incident to my younger brother had occurred during the warmer weather, which in Dunedin (bottom half of the South Island of New Zealand, below the ‘45 degrees South’) was not particularly that ‘warm’, especially during the night. The linoleum was however, quite cool. And my body had been quite warm, when under the covers. It had certainly heated up with the several whacks and slaps in the recently received punishment, even the welts from my father’s hands were retaining a certain stinging warmth. But the linoleum was cold and as I stood with my bare feet in direct contact, I began to experience muscle cramps in my feet. My toes began to cramp up and ‘lock’ together.

Anyone who has experienced actual muscle cramps, whether during exercise or, even scarier, during the night will understand the pain. The excruciating pain as a muscle spasms and lock up in a ‘clenched’ position. This actually causes micro tears to the muscle fibre. As the muscle is strained beyond its normal stretch and suddenly contracts. This was happening to my feet. The muscles and tendons of the toes on one foot then the other, then both began to contract and ‘lock up’ The strange thing is until you don’t have the ability to adjust your balance with your toes, you take balance for granted. The moment your toes spasm and your muscles stop operating, you lose that simple instinctual skill and start to fall.

(Continued Tomorrow)