This Very Breath by Daniel Wallock

I was born with a broken heart, literally. The hospital and or my childhood seemed to be a neverending time of tragedy. The smells of hydrogen peroxide and cleaning products, the fluorescent whites of the hospital and the deep reds of my tattered flesh. My body shredded with tiger-like rips and my thoughts tortured with trauma. “Your son has seven life-threatening heart conditions,” I remember hearing my doctor announce. For fourteen years my life was a mix of unending hospital reds and heart monitor beeps. Now surrounded by land, my life is a beam of light with the smell of fresh eucalyptus. My life is the sun in the morning and the winter chill on my fingers. My life is riding next to deer on my bike and hearing the sounds of owls in the sweetness of night. I am with nature and I am alive. My heart may be broken, but that only means that I have learned to appreciate the things like this very breath.

Daniel Wallock is a senior at Besant Hill School in Ojai, California, where he is learning to write. Daniel, who one day plans to write a book about his life, is currently experimenting with shorter forms of nonfiction. “Breathe,” a short story encapsulating his childhood, was selected for the 2012 Marlboro College Beautiful Minds Challenge. Find out more at http://www.danielwallock.com/