This piece “Scorpion” was written in March of 2020 by Angel Reynolds formerly known by the first name Amanda as it is referenced in the essay. It is a braided essay that is similar in tone to the works of Cheryl Strayed and other imperfect authors.

Please note the pattern. 1-2-3-4 and repeat. It’s intentional.

Somewhere in the desert a scorpion is crawling over hot sands in the drying heat. Its body is somehow unaffected by the intensity of the sun nor the scorching temperatures of the sand, it makes its way through dunes and waves of hills past Joshua trees and mountains. At night it glows in the blacklight like a neon sign and survives the freezing cold of rapidly dropping desert temperatures. In a place with little water except the annual monsoons and little food to be found in the barren sands, the scorpion endures.

Time is like an ocean current, and turtles flow with both. In the sea somewhere a turtle is just following the current, moving through warm ocean waters. Swimming along with the way things are. It’s affected by what’s around it, but it still flows unchanging. When it’s scared it recedes into its shell for protection, I guess that’s why they live so long. They flow with the currents and with the tide and live to be eighty because of it.

            I laid on an air mattress in my living room with my roommate like we always do. It’s become a habit for the two of us to just lounge about on the air mattress talking and doing homework or watching movies. I don’t remember what I was doing at the precise moment my roommate asked me a question, though it was only a few days ago. I had my laptop in my lap so I might have been watching Netflix or doing homework or playing games. Maybe I was reading an e-book. I don’t remember where the conversation was or where it was going. All I know is I was asked about how committed I was to immortalize a certain image on my body, permanently. The one she asked about was a turtle, but it wasn’t the image I was most committed to.

            Music was playing through the car stereo on my way home from being picked up from another bad situation. I don’t remember which car, my dad had gone through many, and I don’t remember which bad situation, though I suspect it was a time my stepmom kicked me out. I wasn’t older than fifteen. My dad made a comment on how the song that was playing reminded him of me. The song was “Wherever I May Roam” and it was played by Metallica. The lyrics were unfamiliar to me then, but I know all the words now. The lyric that made my dad comment that it made him think of me was at the end of the chorus and it went like “Wherever I may roam, where I lay my head is home.”

            Somewhere in Arizona is the place that I visited on a hot April morning. Where I worked in the heat, taking breaks in the air conditioning when it got too much for me. In the evening I would eat dinner with my grandparents and talk about all the things they loved about this place; how beautiful the desert was. My grandma’s husband Tom pulled a jar out from under the motorhome. It was a glass jar barely big enough for what it held inside. Glowing in the black light the scorpion attacked the glass enclosure. It was trapped in a glass jar filled with sand, even in the glass in the heat, that unfortunate little creature was surviving.

Time is what’s changed me. Time for the bad things to happen. Things I don’t like talking about and things I can’t shut up about. I never talk about my assault, but I always talk about my stepdad. Neither thing is really related but I assume I talk about one because I can’t talk about the other. Not without really exposing myself. I guess that’s why everyone assumed I was more of a turtle, while I definitely have armor, I fight back too much to really be a turtle.

I was talking with my roommate about tattoos. I was leaned up against the wall. She wasn’t sure she wanted to keep her tattoo appointment that she’d put a deposit on. She said she wanted to get her tattoo done while she was in Taiwan and wondered if I wanted to take her appointment so the money wouldn’t just be forfeit. I told her I had to ask my boyfriend because I didn’t have the money. She sat up with enthusiasm and insisted I call him right that moment. She said she had a good feeling about it.

            Music is a huge part of my memories and how I experience life. There’s a soundtrack in my head playing constantly. Growing up my dad had this CD case that was huge. I couldn’t easily count all of the artists in it. It felt like the black fabric and broken zipper contained all of the music I had ever listened to. Though my dad probably didn’t have Backstreet Boys or NSYNC, but he had everything else. All of the good stuff that I would listen to for hours. On bad days I would borrow Alice in Chains and on good days I would listen to Guns and Roses. I knew every artist and my dad would quiz me on it every time a song played on the radio. “Winds of Change” by The Scorpions. “Enjoy the Silence” by Depeche Mode. I knew them all.

The opening riff of “Enter Sandman” would bellow from the radio in my dad’s car. We would be out running errands; I would volunteer to tag along just to spend time with him. Like clockwork my dad would ask, “Who is this by?”

“Metallica,” I would say with the strong undertone of “How could I ever mess that one up?”

Sometimes a song I didn’t know would come on. He’d make me guess a few times before giving me the answer.

“It’s Boston,” My dad would concede never looking away from the road. How could I ever forget? I was named after a song by Boston after all. I think I remember hearing my dad sing it once.

My dad had all kinds of trivia for me growing up. Not just music but television and geography. He’d play games with math and tell me the same story about “The Simpsons” every single time we drove through Springfield, Oregon on our way to my Aunt Cyndi’s house. It was all part of how my dad tried to relate to me. I guess it worked because I didn’t really feel unloved.

            Somewhere out there is a home I’ve never been to but have been homesick for none the less. Or maybe I’m homesick for the change in scenery that I constantly embark on. The reason that in the last decade I’ve been all over this side of the Mississippi River. I’ve yet to cross that river. I’ve been to a lot of places though and had adventures and misadventures. I’ve seen burros in northern Arizona, swam in a river in Texas, and blew a tire outside of Reno. Even when things go wrong, I know that I will survive. No matter what happened and no matter where I am, I survive. I’m just like that. I make my way to a new place and no matter how harsh the environment is, I make it through. I’m a nomad, a wanderer, someone who drifts from place to place never really settling.

            Time is an unstoppable force. In the age-old question what happens when an unstoppable force meets and immovable object, I finally have an answer. The immovable object simply changes and becomes something else. That’s what it feels like happened to me. I was an immovable object, stubborn as they come. Time changed me. I’m like metal. The more you hit it, the more you twist it, the weaker the molecular bonds. The less stubborn I’ve become. I’ve become less stubborn when faced with a challenge that can be solved with compromises and more stubborn in what I will take from the world. More stubborn in my belief that I need to keep my head above the water and keep breathing.

            I sat at the table drawing in permanent ink on a notebook. Sketches of the ink that would linger under my skin. My roommate writing song lyrics in another notebook on the other side of the table. Her back to the wall a pen in her hand. I ask her how the image I’ve been drawing looks and she says it looks “really good.” I’ve drawn five of them. All variations of what I want to mark myself with, to make my skin a totem that remembers the different sides of who I am. She sings to me the lyrics she’s been writing. Music is as much a part of her as it has been a guide to me. The scorpion in blue ink on a table between us. A symbol of who I have really always been, a resilient survivor, a scorpion.