Holding his hand

You know, you wake up in the morning and you don’t know where you’ll be by the end of the day. You think it’ll be just another day like any other, but then it goes and changes on you in a matter of seconds.

You had to take the day off work today. You have a terrible cold; everyone seems to have a cold this summer. Nothing remarkable about the day, really. You were in the bath this morning and your mobile phone rang, you had to leap out of the bath to answer it. Your new boss that you start work for next week is calling to ask you a question. Nothing really remarkable about the day. A bit unusual, but not steeped in omen.

You are working on the computer this evening when you hear a crash. Not a bang or a slam or a smash, but a crash. A metallic sort of sound. And then there is a lot of screaming. Yelling. Someone in pain.

You know, you wake up in the morning and you don’t know that evening you’ll be sitting on the edge of the pavement. You don’t know that on the edge of the pavement you walk down every day there’ll be a boy and you’ll be gripping his hand tight and staring at his motorcycle in three pieces ten yards down the road.

The boy in the road has one foot on the pavement. His other leg is twisted. There’s something terribly wrong with his ankle. It’s jammed up against the curb and it’s bent out to one side at sixty degrees. The boy is yelling and whining about the pain, and you’re sat there on the edge of the curb telling him it will be okay, the ambulance is coming. And you’re thinking; why isn’t the ambulance coming? The boy’s eyes are white and he is saying; It’s Really Bent Innit? It’s Bent Sideways. Why Did This Have to Happen to Me? It’s Bent Right Round I Can Feel It.

You watch the ambulance leave. You’ve seen the boy have a drip put into his arm for the pain. You’ve watched him inhale gas and laugh madly about the gas. You heard him scream as the paramedics straightened his leg; he screamed No No Don’t Touch It, and the paramedics shouted back; We Have to Straighten Your Ankle or You Could Lose Your Foot.

When you get inside an hour later your father hands you a drink. You look down and realise with surprise that your hand is covered in blood. You’re fine with it. Everything is fine. You are calm and everything feels normal. Until the night has drawn around you and you wake and it’s 2 am in the morning and you are afraid to move. Afraid to stand on your ankles. Afraid to flex your wrists. Every joint in your body has become tenuous and your head is overcome by the sudden notion that a human body can be manipulated and crushed like plastic.