Can you tolerate this? : personal essays and thumbnail sketches

Abstract

Harry lived inside two skeletons. The first was the one he was born with - the ordinary skeleton of a young boy. There was nothing wrong with this skeleton, except for a bony protrusion on one of the big toes. But his body believed that this skeleton were too fragile to exist on its own. So it started to grow another one to provide shelter for the first. If Harry hurt himself - if he fell off his bike or stubbed his toe - his body grew new bone in the place where he had been hurt. The only way his body knew how to heal was to make bone, so afraid was it of leaving any part of him vulnerable to disaster. Soon the outer skeleton bound Harry in struts and girders. Bone covered his back like a broken cocoon. He was metamorphosing. A delicate column, like a stalactite, fused his head to his neck. Harry's outer appearance was hard and angular, but his face looked okay, if a little waxen - you might think he was recovering from an accident, or was going through an awkward growth spurt.