O:JA&L Flash Nonfiction
Personal Essay/Memoir/Vignette
Tara Hashagen
SEVEN FOLDS
They give you a gown that opens in front, as if modesty is the first thing that falls away. “The doctor will be with you shortly,” the nurse says—a subjective term in this fluorescent purgatory where time folds back on itself like origami.
Across the waiting room, a woman is folding tissue into increasingly smaller squares, as if trying to compress her anxiety into something “pocket-sized”. I count the folds: seven. In seven precise movements, she’s transformed something soft and vulnerable into something tigh, solid, contained.
I recognize the strategy.
I think of beach days—thirteen years of memories etched into the Oahu shoreline, now bittersweet as I mourn all the photos I surrendered to insecurity. The time spent worrying about how my chest looked in swimsuits, and the cruel irony of realizing I spent years despising what I’d one day beg to keep.
The magazines are all from last year—artifacts of someone else’s yesterdays stacked on side tables. As if I needed a reminder that life continues moving forward with or without my permission.
Between the woman’s seventh and eighth fold, it hits me like thunder without sound: I’ve never once thanked my body for keeping me alive.
Later, my wife, Leah, will ask me about my appointment, and I won’t mention my peculiar epiphany—that gratitude arrives in the most sterile of places, wearing a paper gown that opens in front, precisely when everything else is being taken away.
About the writer:
Tara Hashagen lives in Hawaiʻi with her wife, Leah, where she writes about identity, personal growth and resilience. She believes in small moments with big meaning and the power of story to make us feel less alone. When not writing, she’s probably laughing at something wildly inappropriate or trying to keep plants alive in volcanic soil.
Image: Rise of Night from The Sunset Series by Lenka Husáriková (contemporary). Oil on unspecified medium. No size specified. 2024. By free license.
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