#and they are actually split vertically so he essentially has four “jaws”

[cornix-the-void-crow]

Maybe I should succumb to the temptation of adding trains and tram network in Hazbin Hell and not care that adding public transport would make it less hellish.

On the similar note, I kinda want to go through with using knowledge about urban planning that I'm getting from uni and redesign Pentagram City. Maybe give it a big open market square in the centre where historically people would bring their wares to sell in temporary stalls. Or add a version of Sukiennice.

Also it would be neat to play around with Kowloon Walled City-adjacent development of Pentagram City, unregulated but kinda organised construction that was constricted from expanding outwards so it grew denser and taller.

Other thing that would be interesting is what vegetables and animals live in Hell and how are they cooked? How human dishes are adapted for local demonic ingredients.

And language! It would be so neat to play around with Hell's writing systems or how languages would shift in such mixed environment like Pride Ring

[puppyexpressions]

Tongue Talk: Anatomy of a Dog's Tongue

It's a radiator, a water-lapper, a healer of wounds, a food conveyor, a register of tastes, a texture sensor, and a wet equivalent of a dog's handshake. A dog's tongue has more responsibilities than any other part of the dog anatomy -- excluding the brain.  And oddly enough, for all its duties and actions, it is one of the most maintenance free structures of all the dog's body parts!

Let's take a look at this unique structure and see what we can discover.

On a recent photo shoot with one of my dog trainer/hunter friends, I exposed four rolls of film while he put this three black labs through some off-season training. When I placed the slides on the viewer I was curiously struck by how many action shots captured the charging subjects with their long, flexible tongues literally flopping out there in the breeze.  (I'm talking about the dogs here, not the trainer!)

Almost every photo displayed the dog's tongue completely extended with mouth open wide, fully exposing the airway to the onrushing breeze. After seeing these photos, I was amazed that in my busy small animal practice I wasn't seeing more than just occasional tongue injuries.

With that fleshy, vascular flag waving around, frequent injuries should be expected -- but in 25 years of practice in an area pleasantly infested with hunting dogs, tongue problems are just not very common.

Nevertheless, it has happened more than a few times that I would get a frantic call at home from a hunter wanting to rush his gun dog in because "she's bleeding from the mouth like a stuck pig!"  So I'd rush in to the animal hospital expecting to perform some heroic surgery only to find the bleeding had stopped and the owner apologetic about all the fuss. Upon examining the mouth, I'd find one or more lacerations -- sometimes not very substantial at all -- that had clotted and nicely sealed.

"Keep her quiet today - turn her loose again tomorrow," I'd say to the relieved owner.

What has happened in this situation is that at the time of the injury, whether the tongue was traumatized by thorns or accidentally pierced by a tooth, barbed wire or other sharp object, the tongue was expanded and engorged with blood.

A major source of heat loss for the exercising dog, the tongue's rich supply of blood vessels all dilate, causing the tongue to swell and extend.  Even a tiny puncture at this time will reward the insult with a flow of crimson. And a deep cut can produce some truly scary amounts of blood.

When the owner sees blood "all over the place" the hunt stops, the dog cools off, the blood vessels constrict turning down the flow to normal and the tongue shrinks back to a resting state -- perfect condition for clotting to occur.

So, if you find yourself out in the field or marsh and your canine companion cuts his tongue -- stop the activity, cool the dog down with a short swim and allow a few seconds of a cool drink of water; and consider a trip to the vet if your judgment tells you the bleeding is pretty significant. And don't allow the dog to continue to drink!  

All that tongue activity required to lap up the water will only delay the clotting. Plus, if some anesthesia and suturing is required, it is preferable to operate on a patient that has an empty stomach rather than to risk anesthesia-induced vomiting in an unconscious patient.

Essentially the tongue is an elongated muscular organ with the top surface covered with specialized epithelium. Its responsibilities include responding to taste, touch, pain, and aiding in heat dissipation.

When I began researching this article, I quizzed myself and was able to recall only three muscle groups interacting with the tongue. Well, the faithful Miller's Anatomy of the Dog describes no less than eight pairs of muscles whose job it is to control the tongue's activities. They have intimidating Latin names such as genioglossus vertical and oblique, hyoepiglottis, and sternohyoideus.

That band of tissue directly under the tongue holding it down. . . that's called the frenulum; you've got a frenulum too, only not quite so well developed.

And something you don't have that the dog does -- feel just under the tip of the dog's tongue running from front to back along the midline, you'll find a firm cartilaginous, almost bony structure. That's called a lyssa. This little device was considered in ancient times to be a cure for various ailments including rabies!

Gosh, medicine has come a long way, hasn't it?  Modern medicine has progressed to the point where we at this time don't even have a clue as to what the lyssa is for!

TASTE: In addition to directing the dog to eat rotten garbage and to be repulsed at the taste of woodcock, the canine tongue is capable of discerning sensations of salt, sweet and sour. The sensation of sour is dispersed somewhat evenly over the top of the tongue, salt along the lateral edges and rear of the tongue and sweet along the edges and front of the tongue. Dogs have a finely tuned ability to taste water, and that trick is performed only by the tip of the tongue.

PAPILLAE: These odd projections from the surface of the tongue are of five different types. The slightly shredded look to the front and side of the dog's tongue (especially noticeable in newborn pups) are called marginal papillae and those funny bumpy things on the back of the tongue are vallate. Now the next time you see your buddy curiously peering into his dog's mouth and he suddenly exclaims, "Hey, what the heck are these weird doofangles on Cinder's tongue?", you can tell him they're called papillae and there are five kinds of them and casually walk away.

WHAT MAKES THE TONGUE WET? Every dog has four pairs of salivary glands with tiny drainage tubes transporting the saliva into the mouth. One salivary gland is located just beneath and lateral to the eye underneath the "cheekbone". One gland is situated at the base of the ear-canal cartilage; and one just behind the angle of the jaw and the smallest in front of the angle of the jaw. These glands produce the preponderance of moisture in the mouth, secreting a thick (mucoid) saliva and a watery-thin (serous) saliva. Plus, the surface of the tongue itself harbors numerous tiny salivary glands secreting both serous and mucoid fluid. So the dog's tongue doesn't really sweat, but the net effect of the salivary glands of the tongue amounts to the same thing -- cooling by evaporation.

TONGUE COLORS: Have you ever heard some "dog expert" say, "See that black coloring in there on the dog's tongue? Means he's got some wolf blood in 'em." Duh! All dogs, from Chihuahua's to Bernese Mountain Dogs have, through selective breeding over eons, evolved from a wolf-like common ancestor.

Black pigments (technically a result of microscopic melanin granules) in patches on a dog's tongue, gums and inner lips are common and have no medical significance. That is as long as the dark patches are not raised up higher than the surrounding non-pigmented tissue. If you ever see dark, pigmented tissue anywhere on your dog that actually looks like a bump or is raised up above the neighboring tissue, have your veterinarian examine it. It may be a dangerous form of cancer called melanoma. Another nasty form of cancer accounting for about half of all types found in the tongue is called squamous cell carcinoma. Two other types of cancer of the tongue are granularcell tumor and mast cell tumor. If found early, these may be treatable and complete cures are possible, however, plan on surgery and possible radiation therapy.

INFECTIONS: Because it is so richly supplied by nourishing blood vessels, infections of the tongue are not common. Generally, when they do occur, a foreign body such as a fox tail awn, porky quill, thorn or wood splinter is the culprit and can be removed under anesthesia.  (Anyone who lets their dog chew on lumber, please stand up ... uh huh.  Okay, everybody can sit down now.) Split firewood and 2x4's sure can make a dog proud and happy, but those woody splinters can wreak havoc in the dog's mouth and gastrointestinaltract. Wood is indigestible, you know.  Throw them a tennis ball and forget the timber!

It's a good idea to really examine your dog's mouth routinely -- say every Saturday morning just before you start on those chores you've been putting off. Maybe if you're lucky, you'll find something suspicious requiring an immediate trip to the animal hospital and thereby a legitimate postponement of the chores until the following Saturday!

WIRING: The canine tongue is uniquely constructed to do so many things. And to perform all these diverse and intricate functions the tongue requires five separate pairs of nerves coming directly from the brain through tiny openings in the dog's skull. These are called Cranial Nerves since they do not arise from the spinal cord, but directly from the base of the brain itself. In many an idle moment I've pondered what effect on my shooting success there would be if I had a fancy cranial nerve connected to my right forefinger rather than an ordinary spinal nerve ... hmmm.

Remember, the tongue is king. Everything else in the mouth is an assistant. Keep a close watch, though, for ulcers, bruises or bleeding from the tongue, gums or palate. Check for broken teeth that can irritate the tongue or bumps arising anywhere within the oral cavity. Work your finger under each side of the tongue and force it upward so you can inspect the underside of the tongue.  I've found some pretty odd things wedged or otherwise hiding beneath the tongue.

You really should reward that tongue once in while by allowing it a full, wet slap on your face just before its owner bounds off on a walk with you -- just for fun -- no dummies, no whistles, no check cords or leashes. Odds are that the tongue will reward you at the end of your playful excursion.

[ecotone99]

[NF] The Kila Track Meet

The Kila Track Meet

A true story. Names have been changed for identity purposes

It was one of my favorite days of the year, which was saying something considering the litany of activities my school provided us.

There were, of course, about a dozen field trips a year, ranging from museums to overnight stays deep in the wilderness. Notably we had the Elizabethan festival, a hilariously overproduced set of plays my school put on every year that were almost always Shakespeare plays, with one year The Sound of Music making its debut (I, unsurprisingly, was cast as a Nazi general). Looking back, it was a hilarious concept to try and herd 30 elementary school kids onto a stage, yet alone try to get them to say their lines with any sort of idea what they were saying.

There was even a track and field-esque day at my school, an event we called the Montessori Olympics. At the Montessori Olympics, the oldest class, the vaunted Sixth Graders, would split up into four nations, and those nations would then draft students onto their teams in a schoolyard pick style (it was at a school, after all). One of the most dramatic days of the year would always be when the draft order got “leaked” (meaning Kelvin Tate told everyone), and seeing hurt feelings fly like doves.

But even the Montessori Olympics pales in comparison to the Kila Track Meet, the most heralded spectacle of them all.

Montessori, being a tiny, progressive, private elementary school, didn’t have a lot of schools it interacted with regularly. I suspect the other schools hated us for our success and constant theatrical productions, and therefore refused to mingle their children with ours. Whatever the slight may have been, it resulted in an isolation that left us Montessorians to our small group.

Except at the Kila Track Meet.

The Kila Track Meet was an annual event put on by Kila Elementary School, a small, farm-based subset of our town that is indistinguishable from a 1930’s ranching town. They didn’t have a lot of students, but being on the outskirts of podunk Kalispell, they had a massive amount of space to house 400 screaming kids once a year.

Now the Kila Track Meet was essentially a gathering of all the schools in our district that were too small/poor to hold their own field day. The vast majority of these schools were remote farm schools, with farm kids enrolled. Like North Dakota State offensive linemen and Brock Lesnar would show you, farm strong is a real thing. A lot of these kids, even as early as the fourth grade, already had to start contributing to the family operations, and were generally ripped compared to your average fifth grade dweeb.

One would think the school that puts on an annual Shakespeare festival, has teachers that walk around in sandals, and students that sit in a big circle to talk about their feelings daily would be the underdog at an event like this, but Montessori was always well represented. The secret, I suspect, being the stretching and running routine the school had adopted since its foundation, with every morning starting with a series of Japanese like stretches and ending with a 1/3 mile around a track. (Kids could run more if they wanted, essentially putting off classwork and school time. One kid ran for like two hours straight. It really was a nuthouse).

It wasn’t much, but it guaranteed a baseline athleticism for every Montessori student, and I believe this was for the sole purpose of competing at Kila every year. Yes the health benefits were numerous, but our Soviet-era strength and conditioning program churned our champion after champion in the field events.

Going into the meet in my sixth grade year, I knew I was relishing perhaps my final showing as a track athlete. My personal history at the Kila meet was checkered, with some strong showings in certain categories and pedestrian showings in others. First up on the day: the Softball Throw.

As a baseball player since I was a toddler, I was usually pretty successful at the Softball Throw, one of the higher-prestige competitions. This one was usually less about brute strength and more about form, and my experience of hurling balls back into the infield after they had sailed over my head in baseball games was appreciated, as I routinely “medaled” in the event.

(Side note: first place was awarded a blue ribbon, second a white, and third red ribbon. Everyone also got a purple participation ribbon, which by itself was the mark of a true loser).

This time, in my final year at the meet, I was already planning on where to put my third place ribbon. My friends Sam and Kelvin, two pretty great collegiate athletes down the line, had launched their softballs into unaissable distances. Sam, a high school state champion Quarterback and Kelvin, a Big-10 tennis phenom, both had rockets for an arm (or as close as you can get to a rocket for a sixth grader), and were a good twenty feet past the next closest.

I sauntered up, grabbed the softball, did my best crow-hop and rifled it down the field. It wasn’t close to Sam and Kelvin’s, but it was good enough for third place out of the fifty-ish competitors. Good enough for me, and a 1-2-3 Montessori finish is the best result we can ask for anyways. I think I’ll put this one on my shorts leg.

And then, a tall, muscle-adorned kid stepped up to the line. Jesus, I thought he was one of the supervisors. He was wearing a cut-off tee to reveal his bulging biceps. What sixth-grader has arms like these? His arms seemed to glisten, as if he had oiled them up before he ripped off the sleeves, showcasing his arms to the world.

Before I even had time to gulp in nervousness, the boy bombed the softball down the field, past my ball, past Sam’s ball, past Kelvin’s ball, and past the electricity box that was twenty feet beyond any ball. My jaw, like every other one of my peers, was on the floor. I didn’t even think Randy Johnson could throw that far. The judge went through the pathetic motions of trying to determine a winner, like we didn’t all know the result. When he came back, he told us what we had already known. Josh Becker had won, and had arrived on the scene like a meteor arriving to earth.

The next event was the high jump, although not of the Fosbury flop variety. This, much like any vertical leap measurement, was conducted by measuring the athlete at the top of his reach, and then having a judge spot and point on the board how high the athlete jumped. This job was routinely done by old women on the school board at Kila, which led to some often-questionable decisions

However this year, Stevie Wonder could’ve had the judging position and it wouldn’t have made a difference. Even he could see that Josh Becker out-jumped every other kid by at least a foot. I sucked at this event, so I was nonplussed at getting demolished here, but I do remember thinking that Josh, a sixth-grade boy, still a child, could easily dunk.

Naturally following the high jump was the long jump, which, almost paradoxically opposed to my skill in the high jump, I was excellent at. A good chunk of all of my ribbons in my Kila career had come at the long jump. I attribute my success to an early misunderstanding from my father’s advice, who told me to “land forward”. I took this to mean launch yourself forward without respect for your landing, so long as you tumbled forward. My technique of jumping face first and sort of somersaulting/crash-landing had proven to yield results.

The event, which was probably the closest to resembling the actual event it was named after, featured a grass runway that lead into a large sand pit, which would soon be teeming with children. On a couple of occasions, spectators had wandered into the line of fire to be clotheslined by a flying schoolchild.

Though in marvel of Josh’s supersonic performance in the first two events, I was still relatively confident going into the long jump. The first few competitors didn’t have any jumps that looked threatening, so I was ready to perform.

I got a good run going, arms flailing behind, and launched magnificently into the sun before falling out of the sky and into the sharp sand. I could tell it was a good jump, and was ready to..

“Scratch”.

I couldn’t believe it.

I had (so far) been able to stomach Josh Becker trouncing me. I could deal with being an inferior athlete, this was something I dealt with all the time. I could not take being screwed out of success by some judge, or even worse myself.

I tried my best to force a smile, but inside I was beginning to crumble. There was only one attempt left, if I scratched again, my day would be ruined. Could I even count on my automatic three-legged ribbon at the end of the day at this rate? What an embarrassment I would be if I didn’t get a real ribbon on what could be the end of my athletic peak?

I worked my way back to the end of the line, shoulders slumped. If I had a tail, it would’ve been between my legs. Before I could even take flight for my second attempt, I was in my own head. And anyone whose ever watched sports knew what was going to happen next.

“Scratch”

Bedlam.

The thin veil of composure I had on evaporated, replaced by hot, angry tears. This time it wasn’t even close, with my shoe print visible well into the sand pit. There were still competitors who needed to jump, but i was already tornadoing out of sight. A double scratch, are you kidding me. I left the group, needing a few minutes to myself to cry and curse (some things never change).

After my tantrum, another blue-ribbon ceremony for Becker, and some quick lunch (a ham sandwich in a ziplock bag that someone stepped on), the final four events were primed for action. Like any good track and field meet, the day would be capped off via sprints, a team relay, the mile run, and of course the three-legged race.

The sprint, or the dash, was by far the quickest of all the events, but it was also the most dangerous. The thirty or so competitors would all line up in a field, cramped in as tight as they can so that everyone had a spot on the starting line. By the sixth grade, nobody was putting their hand in the dirt to get a good jump off the blocks. Rather, your hands needed to be alive and alert, ready to yank down your neighbor or to fend off an incoming tackle.

There were no false starts, there were no penalties, and there were no rules. Or at least, they existed, but were hilariously not enforced. As soon as the whistle would sound, about a third of the sprinters would fall, crumpling from tangled feet or a well-placed shove.

The other thing that made the sprint so dangerous compared to the other events was the field itself. There was a large dip in the middle of field, right in the path of the sprinters needing to finish. So for the lucky few that made it out of the starting gates, an unexpected drop in the field is the next problem to deal with. If you’re not aware of it, and hit the dip going full speed (and going full speed is the entire point of the sprint), there’s a very good chance that your knee will buckle, your ankle will roll, or worse. Watching this event, one would think a team of snipers was employed to take out half the remaining children when they crossed a certain point in the race.

This year, my final in the hell sprint, I had already punted. I was fast, but I wasn’t as fast as Sam or Kelvin, and it was clear this looked like another event that Becker would waltz away a champion. Adding on to this the fact that I double scratched, and someone stepped on my sandwich, I was in no place to mount a serious effort.

When the whistle blew, I went through the motions of fighting off my neighbors and running up to the dip. I took my time, made sure not to blow my knee out, and finished well in the middle of the pack. There was only one or two teachers rushing in to provide medical attention as well, so it was overall one of the cleaner sprints that Kila had ran.

Next up was the relay, and it was becoming apparent to everyone that this event was the Josh Becker show. This was a Jesse Owens-like performance, with kids and parents alike now following around the sixth graders, hoping to see the athletic marvel in action. It was starting to look like a clean sweep, with Josh having won all 5 of the previous events. It looked that the relay, an event where he only controlled 25% of the outcome, was going to be everyone’s best shot to get a blue ribbon today.

Lucky for us, the Montessori elite athletes, Josh came from one of the smallest farm schools in the area, and the three classmates they scraped up to run with Josh were definitely not up to snuff. One was even wearing glasses, and everyone knew back then that wearing glasses and being an athlete were mutually exclusive.

Our team also had a distinct advantage, because we were the only team to ever practice the relay handoff. It seems like a small detail, and one that seems tough to mess up, but the practice was invaluable. You wouldn’t believe how many elementary school kids mess up the handoff in a relay race (or maybe you would believe that). A clean handoff was almost like a guaranteed ten second boost, considering that every other team would accidentally kick the baton at least once.

I, running second, was really only concerned with Karl, our lead runner. Unlike Kelvin, Sam, and myself, Karl was not a willing participant in the sports program. He would much rather spend his time playing the recorder, or writing stories (or doing acid, in his later years). But, our school was also quite small, and Karl the boy artist was forced to run lead off.

He was slow out the gate, but this was to be expected. I was just mostly relieved he kept his feet in front of eachother instead of tangled between themselves, as they often did with Karl in charge of them. We made the handoff clean, and I took off, having to make up the ground Michelangelo had lost us.

Fortunately, the group of second runners in the relay was even slower than the first (not a great sign for me that this was where I was racing, looking back at it). I gained quickly, and another clean handoff between me and Sam all but assured victory, seeing as the racer from Josh’s school was currently on the ground, trying to grab a baton that rolled away from him.

At last, I had a ribbon to wear that wasn’t the god forsaken participation ribbon. Even if I only made up a quarter of the win, it was a win nonetheless, and my mood had brightened considerably. So much so, that I was looking forward to the mile race, something I deeply dreaded back in civilian life.

I had never been a good distance runner, at least not compared to my classmates. Like I said earlier, the mandatory daily runs at school has helped with a base level of athleticism and conditioning, but it also allowed me to see just how fast some of my classmates were. I would always lose in running to Kelvin and Sam, sure. But it was also the rare fifth or fourth grader who would trounce me, and if I couldn’t outrun kids who didn’t even know what boobs looked like, I had little shot at Kila.

Knowing my limitations, expecting a dominant Becker performance, and feeling high from the relay race, I went in with a clear plan in mind. I knew I wasn’t going to win, and that I didn’t really have a shot to even compete. I, instead, was going to sprint out early and at least feel what it was like to be leading the race. It was the opposite of the advice I had been given by my teachers and my parents, but damnit I wanted to feel that glory, to ride that same high as winning the relay.

The race started, a much more safer and spread-out beginning compared to the sprint, but you wouldn’t have known it by looking at me. I took off like I was being chased by a bear. I immediately was in the lead, with every other competitor clearly having some sort of plan in place. Not me, I thought, as I continued to push my body into its top gear, sprinting away from the pack into a considerable lead.

Now, this is the point where everything started to change. I looked back over my shoulder, with the pack far behind. I’m winning. This was my goal, but actually being in first place was a jarring thought. I wanted to be in first for a little bit, knowing I would lose anyways, but actually being here was blowing my mind up.

I thought about taking my foot off the gas and trying to save something for the finish, but I knew as soon as I started to slow down there would be no way to speed it back up again. I continued at my torrid pace, now just desperately hoping I could build up a big enough lead before I crashed. One of my teachers later told me that they were sure I was confused about which race we were running.

I was halfway done with the race, with my considerable lead still intact, when a younger boy, probably a fourth grader, came running up to me from the field. This was not uncommon, as the younger kids would typically run around the track as the older kids did, trying to keep up and steal attention somehow. However this boy had a look of determination, and was holding in his outstretched hand a bottle of water.

“Here!”, he said, trying his best to hand me the bottle before I outran him too. Instinctively, I grabbed it, only now realizing my throat felt like it was on fire. Inexplicably, and still in the middle of a dead sprint, I brought the water bottle up to my mouth and tried to drink as much as I could.

While still running.

I immediately began coughing, any water I tried to drink spilling all over myself. I couldn’t catch my breath, as a good amount of water was trapped in my esophaguses. Still running, I wretched, blowing snot out my nose and water everywhere. My throat was still on fire, but now I was out of breath and doused in spit and Dasani.

The whole debacle had cost me a good portion of my lead, but it hadn’t evaporated completely. I, as best as I could, regained my breath and composure and continued on, digging deep to maintain my rapid pace.

As I rounded the final corner, heading down into the final stretch, I’m sure I was a sight to see. At this point, my energy was nearly out, with the second-effort of sprinting leaving me running on E. My mouth was wide open, desperately heaving for any air I could get. My legs, as much as I wanted them to keep firing like pistons, were cement blocks. I was seriously regretting my entire approach to this mile race.

Simultaneously, the finish line was coming into view right as I could hear footsteps thumping behind me. I didn’t exactly know who was behind me, but based off all the evidence from earlier in the day, I had a pretty good idea. My lungs were screaming, my legs were dead, and I looked like I had just projectile vomited, but I wasn’t going to let Josh beat me. Not when I worked this hard, and this stupidly, on getting the lead.

Some might call it a miracle, but I had just enough of a lead, and just enough left in the tank, to win the race, only mere steps ahead of Becker. I might’ve been going at a snail’s pace when I crossed the line, but I crossed it first.

I wanted badly to throw my arms in the air, to celebrate like an Olympic champion, but every gram of strength I possessed had gone into crossing the finish line, and my body was not prepared for a life after this race. Josh patted me on the back and congratulated me, but I was so far out of breath that I couldn’t even look up, let alone be a gracious winner.

I could do nothing but put my hands on my knees and pant. Still recovering from the mid-race drowning I nearly inflicted on myself, I was coughing like a lifelong smoker. Saliva was building in my mouth, mucus gathering in my throat. I spit, an honest reaction. Unfortunately..

I spit directly onto the judge’s shoe, the judge who had only just appeared to hand me my blue ribbon. Or, more accurately, I spit into the judge’s shoe, seeing as she was wearing open-toed sandals. Or, even more accurate yet, I spit directly onto this woman's toes. It was a gross, mucus-filled discharge that was the result of pushing my body to the absolute limits, and it was now swimming around on this lady’s bare foot.

With my blue ribbon still in her hand, the judge screamed like her leg had been ripped off by a landmine. To this day, I’ve never heard someone yell so loudly and so painfully as this woman who had just been spit on. You would’ve thought someone told her that her child had died at war, she was so distraught.

Realizing what I had done, I suddenly found my second wind. I ran off. I didn’t have a direction or a plan per se, but anything would do just to get away from my crime scene. The woman’s wailing continued as I ran, reminding me of my cowardice and leaving me to wonder just how dangerous my spit was if it was injuring this woman so badly.

I didn’t make it far to whatever destination I was planning on making my new life, as one of my teachers, David, plucked me out of a group of students like a stuffed animal in a claw game.

“We’re going to clean this, right now”, with“this” referring to the woman’s foot. He led me back with the same energy of a mother pulling her child by the ear.

The judge was waiting for me, having traded her murder-screams for an expression of homicide in my direction. David pushed a cup of water in my hand, and nodded to the woman, as if to say “well, let’s get going here”.

I swallowed my pride, and walked over to her. I also swallowed the spit in my mouth, making sure to keep all my bodily fluids to myself this time. Without ever making eye contact (I would have probably died on the spot), I flushed the spit out of her shoe with the water cup, once complaining that I needed more water only to have another cup silently shoved into my grip. I finished the job, gagging just twice, and sheepishly apologized to the judge’s feet. I received no response, and worse yet I received no ribbon, as the mad hysteria caused by my spit made us both forget that I was it’s rightful owner.

The three-legged race was an anticlimactic affair, with me and Kelvin, complete with our weeks of practice, dominating the rest of the field. There were only a couple of other pairs that even finished, with the majority of the teams having crashed as soon as the race began. It was my sixth straight year of winning the three-legged race, the most prestigious of all track events, but I couldn’t even enjoy the celebration.

Despite the fact that I was a champion, and had technically won the last three events of the day, my legacy was now forever marred by “spitgate”. The pinnacle of my athletic achievement, the peak of my competitive powers, had been erased within seconds, replaced with shame and dishonor. Not only had I lost my ribbon, but my reputation too.

Instead of being known as the boy who won, I became known as the boy who spit.

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