Hiding Behind the Cigarette Burn - written for the Toast event prompt "burn"

Hiding behind the Cigarette Burn

Dedicated to my mom and grandma

The small black hole on the inside arm of the L-shaped couch caught my attention. I was only four or five years old, but I knew this little cigarette burn in the grey colored rainbow speckled couch in our living room, with its orange outer ring where it fringed and stabbed your arm sometimes, was my refuge. If I stared at it long enough, I could close my eyes and hide inside this small cave.

I tiptoed into the kitchen and turned into the living room trying not to wake Mom, Dad, or my baby Brother. I had looked to see if the coast was clear before picking up the phone, so I must have known somehow that what I was doing was wrong or I wouldn’t have tried to be so sneaky. Or maybe I was the only non-egocentric five year-old in existence and was actually concerned that I might wake everyone up, but that is highly unlikely as I was clearly going to bother my grandmother in the middle of the night, because I wanted to talk to someone.

I couldn’t tell time yet or was just oblivious to it, but it was late at night because it was dark and everyone was sleeping. I had woken up again and was lonely. This was the 6^th or 7^th place we’d lived in since I was born and even at a young age I had problems sleeping in new places. Especially big one’s like our new house. The apartments, duplexes, and grandma’s basement were much cozier. Grandma had said when we left that I could call her whenever I wanted and she’d be tickled to death to hear from me. So, that had been my plan when I couldn't sleep yet again tonight.

My sense of accomplishment must have given me the nerve to pick up the phone and dial the only phone number I knew; 9 - 1 - 1.

I gleefully waited through the rings, anxiously awaiting my grandmother’s loving voice, and frequently glancing at the doorway to the front room to make sure no one was coming. Operation Secret Phone Call to Grandma was immediately aborted when an emergency line operator said “911 emergency dispatch, can you please state your location and nature of emergency.”

Her shrill voice was not that of Grandma’s and the clang of the phone was loud when I abruptly hung up. Next, I did the only thing a scared five year old could do, I hid inside the couch to await the wrath of Mom. As 911 emergency protocols at the time required that all dispatchers immediately call back any hang-up calls, the shrill voice screamed through the three horribly loud rings that echoed through the sleeping hallways. I didn’t know if the loud ringing or the heavy, sleepy thuds of Mom’s footsteps scared me more, but I did know - I was in BIG trouble.

Mom was groggy and confused as to why an emergency dispatcher was phoning in the middle of the night and as she explained that there was no emergency, she spotted my little feet poking out of the arm of the sofa. The cigarette burn wasn’t big enough for an entire little girl and I’d only been hiding in it in the fear filled depths of my five year old imagination. So naturally, Mom spotted me curled up in a little ball in the corner of the sofa.

The “I can’t see her so she can’t see me” method only lasted until the phone call ended.

I wish I could say that I remembered her immediate reaction, but all I remember is her whispering “did you call 911?”

I didn’t know exactly what 911 was, but I said no - I called Grandma.

She took me back to bed and luckily for me she was too tired to punish me, but the next day she called Grandma for real and the laughing never ended. I didn’t really understand what I did wrong, but embarrassment quickly became a new form of punishment.

The image of that black hole in the arm of the sofa became my refuge once more. I sank back into the depths of the cave avoiding the loud laughter coming from the kitchen.

Slowly the years passed and I grew too big to hide in the tiny hole in the arm of the couch, and soon the sofa disappeared completely, as did the rest of the remnants of my childhood. I obtained an uncanny memory for people’s phone numbers and soon realized that 911 is for emergency calls only - not for lonely little five year old girls to reach their grandmas in the middle of the night.

Unless of course, your grandma just so happens to be an emergency dispatcher for your area, but you better be sure that she’s the one who answers when you call.

Raelynne Hale

June 2013