Audacious Hygiene

Bubbly babbles are buoyed by the smell of fallen leaves trapped in wet soil. A classroom blocks-ringed playground; large enough to make me feel like a drop of water in a bucket, each time I stood on it. Of all my school days, this day - which I still see behind a frosty glass - is the only one. All the others have melted into nothingness. I was having a class. Integrated-science: science: health-science? I have no image of the teacher, only that she was female. Soon, ‘Personal Hygiene’ sprawled across the board. What is personal hygiene: How to promote personal hygiene: Opposite of personal hygiene; the blackboard bustled with chalk marks.

An uneasiness snaked around me and, at first, I didn’t know why. Then I knew. The teacher had called my name. She had just hurled diseases associated with improper personal hygiene and wanted me to repeat three of them. I hadn’t been listening, so my mouth refused to move. I cannot remember all her rant, but ‘dull’, ‘silly’ and ‘look at me when I’m talking’ still reach from behind that frosty glass to jolt me.

‘Come out. Stand before the class.’

My heart took a freefall, snatching my stomach on its way to my feet. The air became thinner. Breathing was becoming a little harder. And the classroom had turned curiously darker. I am still baffled at how I reached the front of the class. I must have floated because my feet were steel-heavy. The teacher asked my classmates to say, ‘Shame’. She counted, ‘One, two, ready, go’ and ‘Shame!’ whispered across the classroom. As I felt her eyes scrape me from head to shoes, tears started to sting my eyes.

She pushed up my head. ‘Class, take a look,’ she said, tilting it to the left. She told my classmates that the skin discolouration, the slight skin discolouration, on my neck was an excellent example of diseases associated with improper hygiene.

Eczema.

Only it wasn’t eczema. It was a birthmark, Mummy told me. The rest of the day lumbered along.

I have good hygiene.

I have good hygiene.

I have good hygiene.

At home, as I told Mummy, I cried hard enough for my heart to nearly burst out of my chest. Tears bathed my quivering lips, and the saltiness stole to my tongue in the soothing way familiar to children alone.

Mummy held me close. ‘I’ll deal with that teacher. Okay?’ Night came, and I slept with a smile, a knowing. My teacher will be sorry. Next day, Mummy drove to school, circled round the playground with her car.

Twice.

Parked in its middle, she palm-downed on the horn.

Two full minutes.

The headmistress and six teachers approached her and within seconds, the erring teacher was dismissed.

But ‘Next day’ didn’t happen. At least not like that.

It's the closure I craved. The tuning I gave this memory. For myself. For the score of ears ever to have heard it. Mummy. Sweet, soft-spoken Mummy. She hugged me, told me to never let people’s words define me.

‘It’s a birthmark. God’s special stamp on you. You have good hygiene. And even when you become a beautiful woman, your birthmark will remain,’ she had said.

My birthmark remains. And today, I carry it proudly, confidently, audaciously.