The Confusing Table
Roberto Hernandez
We changed to my new house not that long ago, probably like one to two years ago. There is this table, to the left of the main stairs, that whenever I see it, all of my memories from THAT day come back. I lived in my other house for about ten years, I remember some of the first few days when we moved in. It had some rooms with nothing in them because the workers were still moving things into the house. But there was this new room, right beside the room with the kitchen in it, “the bar.” My dad had planned to make it a bar since the room was made. The first time I remember going into the room, it was absolutely empty, but this table made out of rock. It was very weird because it had nothing but a table that at the end didn’t even end-up in the bar. It felt like that table just appeared out of nowhere, but some worker probably put it there, but at that time I did not know much. Anyways, I had entered the room a few times, not to long after, probably like 5 days later, the big couch was finally in the room. I remember entering the room with my older brother to try the new couch and chill there for a little. At this time, I was probably like six years old while my brother seven years old, nearly eight. My brother was sitting in the far corner of the couch playing with some type of little magnets. I asked him to let me see the magnets and he brought them to me at the table. At this moment I was hanging from the side of the table, and when my brother got the magnets to me, he started hanging from it as well. He put the magnets at the top of the table, and I remember sticking them at the side of the table. My brother got bored in like five minutes and went back to the couch with some magnets. I still had some magnets on me. He sat down in the couch and though that throwing magnets at me would be funny. While I was still hanging, and he was throwing magnets at me, I have gotten distracted and looked back at him, trying to catch some of the magnets. That is when the table started feeling shaky, and I fell with it. The table fell with me and it landed in my right hand. I had broken most of my right hand. With saying this, I really mean I almost broke all of it, a few of my metacarpals were broken and almost all of my phalanges but the pinky one broke. There was blood everywhere. I remember screaming because it was very painful and I was in shock looking at all of the blood, and the first person to come help me was my maid. She quickly came and covered my hand with some type of napkin, while my parents were on their way. My parents were upstairs, probably watching TV, and after they heard the scream, they came running down to me. My dad told my mom to quickly take me to the hospital, and that is what she did, she immediately took me to the hospital, and the doctor received me immediately. After all of this had happened, days later, my parents asked me how it happened. I told them, but the thing that was so confusing to us, is that, how did the table end-up in my right hand if it had fallen a way that it should’ve fallen in my head. I consider myself being very lucky when this happened, because my parents had told me that it is very strange that it fell in my hand. If the table had fallen in my head, I would have died and it would have been a very tragic event for my family, and mostly my older brother. Now, in present day, in my new house, everything I go up or down the stairs, and I see that table, it always brings me flashbacks of that confusing event.
Roberto Hernandez Yunes is from Monterrey, Nuevo Leon, Mexico. He is a 3rd class senior legacy cadet.