Myth #4

Myth #4. Yamis are impervious to pain. They ignore it. Hikaris will cry at the slightest wound. They complain about it. (Source)

Truth votes: 0
Myth votes: 1

I'm absolutely thrilled with all the comments, guys. Keep it up! Maybe if some of you had contributed your own opinion on Myth #4, you would have beat me. I win this round- it's a truth!

Marlie is absolutely oblivious when it comes to pain. You might know her inside and out. You still won't be able to tell if she's not feeling well. I know her even better than that and I still have difficulty sometimes. The only signs that she's not feeling well are that she doesn't eat anything and that she doesn't talk as much. If you read my post where I described Marlie's eating habits, you'll know she eats very little. Anyone would naturally assume that Marlie not eating is, well... Marlie not eating. Business as usual. The trick is to casually mention food and then watch her face; there's this little muscle above her mouth that twitches when the thought of something makes her sick.

Marlie not talking much is another hard-to-identify symptom. Marlie can talk on and on with me, but when she doesn't have anything to say, she's dead-silent. She creeps people out that way. It's that, and when she's not saying anything, she kind of has this deadpan stare that finishes in a creepy smile.

"Why do you do that?" I asked her once. We were in a waiting room for something or other, and she'd just successfully made a mother of two children get up and leave.

"Do what?"

"That stare where you smile at the end. It's so creepy."

"Like this?" She did it to me, and I couldn't help giggling.

"Yeah. What is that?"

"It's creepy?" she inquired. "I thought it was reassuring. And besides, you said that I ought to smile at people more, so I am." Just to top it off, she tipped me the creepy smile once more.

So there you have it. In Marlie-land, creepy smiles are smiles nonetheless and when Marlie's sick, pain is insignificant. I forgot to mention the time she got kicked by a horse square in the thigh. I know the horse was wearing shoes. Did I mention that I never even saw the horse? She got this gross bruise that she kept pulling down her pants to show people. Er, I don't mean like people on the street, but basically everyone in our circle of friends.

"Look! It was black before. Now it's green, yellow, and blue."

My friend Jess made a face. "Yes, it's disgusting. Could you stop? I'm eating lunch here."

"But look at it! It's like... a buffet of colors."

"Erghlack!"

Later, when everyone else was gone, Marlie turned to me. "What do you think of it, hikari? Isn't it pretty?"

I rolled my eyes. "It's beautiful. You're beautiful. No, I don't want to see it again!"

There is no telling how much pain she was in because pain just doesn't affect her. She never took Tylenol or anything to stop the pain. She just didn't care. And though that bruise finally went away and healed up, she has a dent in her muscle. A hoof-sized dent still with horseshoe nail indentations.

You might be able to tell that the idea of pain being nothing is utterly beyond me. Okay, so I'm a wimp when it comes to pain. If I feel really sick, I get so upset that I cry. Luckily (knock on wood) I've never broken anything worse than a nail. I've been horseback-riding most of my life and am now on crew, but I've never really hurt myself, thank god. I don't know if it's luck or merely the fact that the gods know something beyond a scrape is beyond me. And maybe I do complain about it a bit...

Question for you to answer: How are you when it comes to pain? Are you a wimp? Or do you tough it out without resorting to Tylenol? And what's the worst injury you've ever gotten?

Later I'll post something I've been getting emails about- how Marlie and I first met.