Found:
Wiggles!
I've spent all of today staring at my feet. How ridiculous is that? I don't think I've ever spent so much time being invested in my tootsies!
They exist for keeping balance, walking, running and hurting when one accidentally jabs ones toes on a door frame or a rock. Seriously, you'd think you'd shattered your whole damned leg by the time a stubbed toe finally stops throbbing! It's worse than the whole "funny bone" misnomer.
It's not like they're particularly attractive things; feet never are. Mine have been stuffed into boots for days at a time for over twenty years now. I'll grant, they're well-formed if wide, but there's little skin upon them that hasn't felt the sting of blisters past. Even my calluses have calluses by now! I barely need boots due to the sheer amount of hardened skin upon my soles, or so it seems. I still remember that trail of blood I left behind as I limped away from the Gates of Moria...
So, what is it that fascinates me so about my flippers?
Why, they moved!
Well, alright, my feet didn't move exactly. It was just my toes. And it was more of a twitch than anything. An involuntary spasm, maybe?
It's good enough!
It is progress and no one will take it from me!
I've been trying to replicate the action since it happened. I've been glaring and squinting until I fear I'll be cross-eyed for the rest of my days! I've been willing them to obey me, cursing them to do as commanded and have even resorted to bargaining with them; should they comply, I'll indulge in a nice new pair of fleece-lined sheepskin boots. So far, they continue to stubbornly defy me.
Regardless, I...
Is that...? It is! It's a tingle! I just felt a tingle! In my big toe! Just the one, maybe, but it's one more than before!
Hah!
Screw you World! Screw you, trapped and battered heart! I'll be out of this bed and back on the road in no time! I'll leave all of this behind! This dull little town with its dull little people (and the dull big ones too), this tedious room and its bedbugs and the mice and the rats that live in the walls. I'll bend over on my way through the gate so that this messy and painful uncertainty can kiss my oak-brown arse goodbye!
One day.
As excited as I may be, I can't jump for joy yet. Not literally, anyway. It'll take time before I can so much as walk, never mind run or leap with any real stability. I'm healing and that is wonderful but it's only just begun.
I've a long road ahead of me and I must walk it alone.
