Well - Part II

I woke up knowing I had just peed on myself. The warm fluid seeping down my right leg was at first a nice bit of warmth. I realized also that the rest of my body was pretty darn cold.

Then the pain worked its way into my consciousness. I didn’t know exactly how bad it was but I began to take an inventory. I was pretty sure I had some broken ribs and the right side of my face felt like it was on fire. I could still taste blood. I imagined that I might have lost some teeth. I tried to pick up my head and found that I was partially successful there.

I rolled over onto my left side because that side appeared to be in better shape and tried to get up on all fours. It was daylight but I had no inkling as to what time it was. The sun was cruel in its all-pervasive intensity. I got myself sitting up and then fell back to my haunches leaning against the alley wall. I could see people walking by on the avenue but I wasn’t sure that I wanted notice of my plight from other passersby. The damage report hadn’t been completed yet and I knew I needed some degree of medical attention but was still hoping that I could make it up to my room without drawing much attention. I needed to let work know what was going on and then get to a hospital.

It was then that my inventory efforts revealed that I didn’t have a wallet (meaning no ID or credit cards) nor did I appear to have keys. (Great this was getting to be a more serious situation by the minute).

Lacking any other plans, I started to try to crawl to the end of the alley. I had no choice but to try and solicit some aid from my fellow citizens. I croaked out a couple of attempts at a “Hey, over here… Hey… I need some help” but it came up probably no louder than a croaking and no more intelligible than a guttural slurring of an attempt at English.

I did manage to get within about 5 feet from the sidewalk on the avenue when I got the notice of someone. My one good working eye seemed to focus on someone wearing a lot of blue. To my surprise (horror, shame) it was a patrolman that approached and knelt by my broken form on the ground. His eyes seemed to relay that my situation might be a tad more dire than my preliminary damage reports had revealed.

“Sit still sir… I’m going to get an ambulance here…”

I attempted to stammer out a thanks but it probably sounded like a weak bark.

He produced a handkerchief out of a pocket and began to swipe at the right side of my head. His first touch produced a shooting pain and I withdrew my head quickly as if slapped.

“Ok, ok, just sit tight dude.” he said…

I began to hear the sound of an approaching siren and proceeded to allow myself to lay back down on the ground.

All I could do was wait. I don’t remember any other portion of the experience until I woke up much later in a hospital with some male nurse attending to an IV.

“Hey… ‘bout time you decided to check back in with the land of the living…”