That Nub on My Right Knee

It's unlikely that the cause of a physical scar will be forgotten, but here is the story about that nub on my right knee anyway.

It was grade 2 at Alliance Primary School. A bunch of us were running around playing tag in the small open area between classrooms during recess as usual. Only on this particular day, I happened to trip and fall. Mind you, this being staged in Hong Kong, there was no grass field for us to crash into harmlessly. No sirree, this was hardcore cement we're talking about. To add insult to injury (well, actually it was more like to add injury on top of injury), I contrived to land knee-first onto a lone piece of gravel perhaps the size of half a raisin (I can never say for certain, since the culprit was never apprehended), which proceeded to tear off an equal amount of skin and flesh from my knee. Blood, by design, gushed happily out of the fresh opening.

To give you an idea of how deep the wound was, let's just say I could see red veins running through white tissues and did not feel pain when merbromin (I think?) was applied.

My knee was subsequently put in a wrap for weeks. I couldn't even bend my knee for the first week or two. The flesh eventually grew back, but the patch of skin where the wound once was will always stand out.

You'd think I would've learned my lesson about running around in confined spaces. Unfortunately, that wasn't the last time I shed blood on school grounds.