Last night, after scarfing a dinner of questionable healthiness and beguiling a little time at awfulplasticsurgery.com (why does LaToya Jackson WANT a nose like her brother’s?), I went to play racquetball with garrisod and my boyfriend wonko. Usually garrisod’s more insolent half makes one for the racqueting, but on this occasion she was tussling with her thesis. We convened at Castle Garrikus, and nattered briefly on several topics, including [I tried to find a picture, but I’d really rather not. A guy who took a shotgun to his face and lived.|text|’Arseface’] from the Garth Ennis graphic novel Preacher before moving on to the sports.

I tell you these details to help you understand my state of mind when, some time into our second game of Cutthroat, I turned on my Nike-clad toe to track the ball’s flight and found its flight energetically intersecting with my face, garrisod a faint fuzzy form following through in the background.

For some seconds, I pretty much checked out. I know I didn’t pass out because I didn’t fall over and nothing went dark, but I think I went to my happy place (which involves flying over an azure sea on golden eagle wings), because suddenly I found myself back in my body and my body crouching on the racquetball court covering its face. This was approximately my ‘logical’ train of thought:

• Where the heck am I and who am I and huh?
• I’m…Felicity and I am on a racquetball court—ah! I must have been hit in the face with a racquetball!
• But that will hurt! I refuse to believe!
• Well, the edges of your face hurt like an impact crater, and the center, according to your nerves, doesn’t exist.
• So it’s true. I will now look like Arseface.
• If I don’t have a nose, why doesn’t it hurt more?
• Obviously I am stunned and it will start hurting like having all my facial bones broken with a sledgehammer, and blood will start gushing between my fingers.
• With surgery, I could look like LaToya Jackson!
• Any minute now. Excrutiating pain. And hospitals.
• Mommy! I don’t want to hurt! Why can’t I feel my face?
• WHAT THE HELL IS HAPPENING?

Somewhere between Arseface and LaToya I started screaming like a Slayer slaying Gentlemen, thus causing the bystanders to think I was dying or losing an eye. I sincerely apologize to the bystanders and assure them that I’m not USUALLY such a wuss, and it wasn’t the pain so much as suddenly being transported from the joy of the game and the sensation of eagle-flight to certain knowledge of complete facial cratering, impending agony, and the rest of my life in reconstructive surgery that had me screaming. This was, like Mulder’s praying mantis epiphany, a scream of fear and horror. Unlike Mulder, I admit it was a girly scream.

I think I lay on the court for a while repeating the only verbal thought I had, which was that my nose was broken and I would be ugly forever. I’m sure wonko thinks I’m crazy and shallow for this, but if he’d seen Arseface he’d understand why this was important enough to chant unconsciously for minutes at a time. Then wonko convinced me my nose was fine and I should worry about my mouth, which turned out to be the right move. My nose, while tender, still seems to be in one piece and wobble in the correct manner, in direct contradiction to the deep-seated fear which has either its root or its first expression in the night my papa tucked in my 7-year-old self and I drowsily inquired whether my nose was on right; whereas my lip has swollen to beestung proportions Donatella Versace might envy (google image search her. I DARE YOU.)

I felt better immediately upon knowing my nose hadn’t been shattered into a Gaston Leroux description, and I was, in fact, willing to keep playing, much to the confusion of my cohorts, who refused. So, over delectable snacks and an ice-bag, I’ve told garrisod he should drop this whole law-student idea and start whapping movie stars in the lips, but he’s afraid of the lawsuits if he swells up their butts instead… Meanwhile, the score is Lip and Nose, 0; Boyfriend thinking I’m a spaz, 1; and Me, honorary 15, because apparently if you take a ball to the face, you win the game.