Jenny just loved to play in the garden. She rushed outside as soon as she finished breakfast, or even before breakfast to play there. She played there all day until her mother made her come in for one reason or another. One day, a wicked fly came and bit her. She was mad and ran crying to her mother, but soon went right back outside. A few days later, two things happened. First, a big red bump appeared where the fly had bitten her, and second, she could not turn her head from side to side. Being unable to turn one’s head was so dramatic and scary that no one noticed the bump. The doctor was summoned to where Jenny lay on the couch. Jenny could tell that her mother was scared just as she was, but the doctor assured them that it was a simple virus and that the stiffness would pass in a few days. Jenny did not quite understand how the doctor knew this, but she saw that her mother believed and relaxed, so she lay back on the couch and relaxed also. She listened to records and allowed herself to be fed soft boiled eggs and toast. She began to enjoy a sort of celebrity status in her mind: she was the Girl Who Could Not Turn Her Head. This seemed very important.
Sure enough, after a couple days Jenny returned to school, where she happily showed her friends the limits of her returning ability to turn her head as compared to what happened a couple of days prior. The bump on her arm faded, but did not go away. No one noticed it, and Jenny got used to her bump.
Quite a few years later, Jenny moved out to live on her own. She and her friends sat around one evening drinking beer. Alcohol, as it happened, made the bump swell, and Mary asked Jenny about it. “Oh, a fly bit me once,” said Jenny, who was then surprised when Mary thought this was a big deal. She started to think about the bump more and more, started to worry that something was wrong with her. She didn’t know if the bump was the cause of the ailment she was noticing or if it was a symptom of it, or even perhaps if it was just a symbol of it. But she was fairly sure that she was seriously ill. A couple of times she looked on the internet, trying to read about fly bites, trying to figure out what diseases led to not being able to turn one’s head. Every time she went online, she emerged with a new set of symptoms that she might or might not have, and a new set of possible causes for these mysterious symptoms. She stopped looking at the internet, but kept worrying. After she got a better job, she went to a couple doctors, who ran many, many expensive tests and told her that there was nothing at all wrong. One suggested that she see a psychiatrist since perhaps anti-depressants or anti-anxiety medications might help her. Somehow, Jenny managed to avoid going this route, but she continued to worry. Every night when she went to bed, she communed with her bump, asking it if she was crazy, if she was actually sick or not. The rest of the time she forgot about it.
Jenny had a series of boyfriends, who were varying degrees of fun. The fifth one was sometimes fun, but also rather pushy. He kept insisting they should get married, and finally Jenny said yes. When she told her mother she was engaged, her mother (who had met this boyfriend) hung up the phone on her. Jenny herself was almost as unhappy, but she had given her word and the course of her life was now set. She started making plans. During this time, her arm bump swelled to an enormous size. Simultaneously, a mysterious back injury that had actually occurred about ten years before rematerialized. Jenny was in so much pain she could barely walk. In the middle of this, Jenny and a friend paid a visit to Govinda, an older woman who lived in another city. The friend left earlier to go with a sister, and Jenny stayed quite late talking to Govinda about anything and everything. They sat on a little patio in Govinda’s luscious flower-filled garden drinking tea. Jenny felt transported into another world. Time did not seem to matter, just conversation punctuated by gales of laughter and more conversation, and, occasionally, getting up for a fresh cup of tea. Around 2:30, the subject of the impending marriage came up. Govinda laughed and laughed and told Jenny it was pretty clear she didn’t want to marry this fellow. Jenny knew immediately this was true, but protested that she had to, since she had given her word. “Of course you don’t!” said Govinda, “That’s the whole point of an engagement!” Jenny knew the man would be furious. “That’s ok,” said Govinda, “you can break it off slowly. Just tell him you need to back down a step to think, then back down another step, and another.” She made it sound so easy and possible
Of course, it turned out to be more complicated and painful and dangerous, even, to call off the engagement. The man’s anger knew no bounds for a while, proving beyond all doubt that calling it off had been exactly the right decision. But in that delightful garden moment, Govinda had opened an entire world of freedom for Jenny. She felt free and light and fairly danced off to her car as dawn approached. She sang all the way home. It wasn’t until she was getting into bed that she realized that her back injury had vanished entirely and that she had walked to her car and to her apartment without even a trace of the debilitating pain … and hadn’t even noticed. As for the bump, perhaps it stayed, perhaps it disappeared. You couldn’t have asked Jenny since she never noticed it again.
