Little Bandaid

By Ava Gruszczinski

Little bandaid

By second year Ava Gruszczinski

My earliest memory is sitting on a shelf. Well, actually, my earliest memory is being surrounded by darkness, crammed into a box with a bunch more Bandaids.

I always heard whispers about our collective mission: helping “people” heal. I didn’t know what that meant at the time, just that it was what we were made for–our predetermined path.

We sat in that darkness forever. A sense of time is hard to grasp when your surroundings are invisible. The lack of light invaded me, making me discouraged. We were all the same, just a sea of plastic, adhesive, and dressing. I felt scared.

Then there was an earthquake. We all smashed up against each other and even the safety of our wrappers couldn’t mask our fear. The shaking went on and on, until something miraculous happened. 

A beam of light–so bright it blinded me–invaded our box. Everything was blurry. I couldn’t see through my wrapper. All I could make out were vague pictures and colors splotched around me.

After a while, I was still in the box. Everyone else was being pulled up by some magical force, but I was still in there. Minute after minute, it was only me. 

Thoughts brewed constantly, questions swirling endlessly. Was something wrong with me? Was I not special or worthy? What if I didn’t work, or I made things worse? 

And then It happened. The force grabbed me and lifted me out of the box, and I felt myself freed. My wrapper was gone, floating slowly down while I gazed at this figure. This person. 

She smiled at me, and said, “Alright little guy, I need your help today. I’ve got a date, and you’re gonna help me. I got a pretty nasty papercut, and you look like you can help.”

A pen dived towards me, but it landed with the grace of a feather. It tickled a little, and the girl's eyes were squinted and concentrated. A few seconds later, the tickly feeling went away, and she smiled as bright as the moon. 

Suddenly, she exclaimed, “There we go–perfect. Now I can really see your personality. Here, look!” 

And for the first time, I saw myself–no wrapper, no box. I saw a face looking back at me, smiling and rosy cheeked. I wasn’t just a boring bandage made to protect a wound, I was something more, something special. She wrapped me onto her finger and kissed me gently, and we left for her date. When we got back, she carefully unwrapped me from around her finger and looked at me once more.

Speaking softly, she said, “You made tonight perfect. Did you see the way she looked at me? She even called you cute! Thank you.” After looking at me for a little while longer, she decided, “You deserve a place of honor.”

Taking a pin from her desk, she hoisted me up to her wall and put me right in the middle of the bulletin board. And from my view on the wall, I can still look in the mirror every day and remember my worth.