4. Nature

A thousand times I was told to go outdoors but I was an inside child and did not want to go. I wanted to read my books. Nature, I was told, would make me strong. I was dubious. Nature had made me what I was already -- a crippled boy, my left leg withered beneath the knee and, instead of a foot, a crumpled hoof. Many times I had been told that my mother and I had nearly died the day that I was born. That was nature. Nature was not nearly as wholesome or straightforward as people claimed.