I was 5 years old with 5 other kids at my aunt’s house. There were no adults and we had the whole house to ourselves. So, we did the natural thing and played hide and seek. My turn was to hide and so I dashed into one of the bedrooms. As I ran to dip under the bed, suddenly I felt a sharp sting under my left foot.
I sat on the bed to turn over my foot and saw a sewing needle sticking out from the heel. Turns out a sewing needle was sticking up on the carpet floor and I had stepped on it.
I was a shy and well-behaved kid but if I had the words at the time I would have said, “Fuck.” I yank out the needle and half came out. The other kids began to gather in the room all checking out my foot and examining the carpet for other needles. Shortly, we returned to the game.
The pain wasn’t terrible and there wasn’t too much blood. Plus, I didn’t want to draw attention to myself, so I quickly forgot about it.
For three months I limped quietly. Eventually, my older sister noticed my limp and gave me the evil eye, like “stop being weird.”
In Iran, the evil eye is often deployed to shame kids. It’s where the eyes widen to the edges and darkness pours out from the pupils, directed specifically at you. The jaw and lips stiffen and the whole thing happens at a glance. A moment later it’s as if nothing had happened, leaving you covered with shame. I hated the evil eye and I did my best to avoid it, knowing it would catch me sooner or later.
Eventually, my grandfather saw that I had been limping for quite a while, so he took me to get X-rays. The X-ray showed the other half of the needle was inside the heel bone, and the doctor said it was close to a vital nerve that could have had major consequences. I felt lucky and strange. I was walking around with a piece of metal in my foot for three months.
After surgery and six stitches, the needle was finally out. It was black due to lack of oxygen. The needle looked like a sliver of the evil eye, and I had it in my hand.