149: APGAR — One Off for Color

I didn't want to go; I was pushed. Out. I knew if I entered, I was doomed. It was a message hard-wired. We're all born to die.

I denied the message.

Guilty. Blamed. I arrived culpable of some very first crime and all thereafter; shamefaced over some Original violation. I inhaled a breath, mea culpa, held it, took another: mea maxima culpa. Soon I'd do likewise with real lungs.

Leaving my comfortable world, I entered theirs. Everyone stared, with blinding colors and festive ululations. Joyous, despite watching me cry out.

I was born already competing--getting scored. APGAR: one off for color.

Was it some right color--was this a world where people-of-color were denigrated?

I already started dying from the cold. Just for being born. How can just one threshold be so existential? I fretted:

Whom would I meet? Who will take me? Where? How to breathe? Will I re-experience warm water? Ever again be swathed in muffled tones?

I agonized: they certainly must be monsters.

Had my vestibule been one-way? I had hung on, desperately clutching my pulsating lifeline to pull myself back in. If I would, after such a rude invitation, they'd certainly come in to get me! RSVPs must be answered.

Ripped from my lifeline! They cut it, and then I was on my own.

Landing on the planet Earth for the first time, I was a legal, documented alien without a name, but they'd name me. I'd have to go with my abductors, the guilt, the shame, in a futile hope for consolation, renewal, and absolution. But absolution is only what you make of it. For every misdeed, there's another taking its place, right? What would I replace mine with--anger?

Had I been merely captured, taken as a hostage for a ransom of air?

The price: the difference between innocence and accomplishment was doing something with my life.

Innocence is inert, stagnant. Yet, once getting on with my life, I was dying and would forever be guilty.

Hope.

Was hope worth the price of admission? Deeds, achievements, and crimes accumulated the moment I arrived announced, but nameless--and helpless, forced to face life's tally. Then, named. Judged.

And I would again be scored. Daily.

_____________

AUTHOR'S NOTES:

For Tuesday, May 28, Day 149 of the Story-a-Day Challenge.

366 WORDS (without A/N)

---

Dr. Virginia Apgar developed the APGAR Score System in 1952, a year too late for me. (Sadly, I don't have an APGAR score.) APGAR scores are given, typically, by the birth attendant. It measures five vital functions:

• Activity (muscle tone)
• Pulse (heart rate/minute)
• Grimace (reflex response)
• Appearance (skin color)
• Respiration (breaths/minute)

Each of these categories can receive a 0, 1, or 2, from observations by a doctor or nurse. APGAR Scores are given to the baby within the first minute of birth, then at five minutes. Although quaintly eponymous for its creator, Dr. Apgar, it has been validated as a reliable predictor for neonatal health and beyond. She never married, which is fortunate, had she married some guy whose last name was Wolfeschlegelsteinhausenbergerdorff. (One off for frugality?)

------

There are currently three surviving Vocal writers still participating in the 2024 Story-a-Day Challenge:

• L.C. Schäfer, challenge originator

• Rachel Deeming

• Gerard DiLeo (some other guy)

Watch them at their story scores increase but their APGARs eventually dwindle to zero one day.