Dumbbell Syndrome

She is sitting. The dry grass bristles beneath her little hands. On either side of her, she can see patches of concrete alternating with dormant lawns all up and down the street of ticky-tacky houses. She’s in a carefree, three-year-old state of mind, thinking only of her playmate a few houses down. She sings her name as loud as she can, over and over. From the house next door, a man steps onto his front stoop. Whiskers pepper his chin and strands of hair hang from one side of his balding head. His face plumps as his eyes squint.
“Shut up, ya dumbbell!” His words startle and silence her.

Although she does not know what a ‘dumbbell’ is, in that moment, she does know three indisputable realities. She is a dumbbell. She knows a dumbbell is not good. And she is all at once aware that everyone else knows she is a dumbbell.

She is immobilized. She cannot cry, though she wants to. She remains perfectly still; perhaps no one will notice the dumbbell still sitting on the grass. She sits there for a very long time.

***
She boards a Greyhound on Long Island, venturing off on her own for the first time. She is headed to New Hampshire to visit her brother. A trip all by herself feels precarious, but she’s doing it anyway. She is eighteen after all—practically grown up. In Hartford, Connecticut, she needs to switch buses. A Vermont Transit Bus parks in the spot where she believes she should board, and so she does.

As soon as she takes a seat, and as she watches the driver ready to put the bus in gear, she is overcome with panic. Is this the right bus? She reads Vermont Transit overhead, but she is headed to New Hampshire. She should ask the driver if the bus stops in Claremont, but she cannot make herself move, let alone speak. Somewhere inside she hears a voice, Shut up ya dumbbell!

For five hours, stop after stop, she is immobilized, never knowing until the last moment if she will ever arrive at her destination.

***
She reads a review of her writing, something she has bravely poured her heart and soul into. Her chest pounds with such discomfort that she stops breathing. She is reading a blur of isolated words strung together with venom. They make no sense and she squints harder, trying to understand. Now, they come into focus. Shut up ya dumbbell!