A Blank Canvas
But not merely white; truly blank. A blank canvas, on a transparent easel, in a place that doesn't exist and has no time. And because the canvas is blank and the easel is transparent and the place does not exist and nor does time, there is no sound. At least, that might be the reason. In any event, there is no sound. But there's no light either. So maybe this is more like the bottom of a deep, dark ocean. Except it's not really dark; it is simply blank. So maybe the bottom of a deep dark ocean before it has been fully created. But before is meaningless; there is only now. As each now is completed it has never been and there is only a new now. So maybe void is better. In this void there are no sensations and no thought, as there is no one to feel or think.
But now a part of the void has started to rise, as if a bubble of nothing were forming within a sea of nothing. The rising bubble brings with it sensations; faint and far off. A girl is screaming and crying somewhere nearby, a few thousand miles away. There is a general babble as of a large number of people, but they're speaking a language that cannot be understood, and too muffled to be heard anyway. Then there seems to be a person near me; I am aware that I exist, having recently formed from the void. The person is in fact holding me, though from a great distance. It is good to be held; I can only find one of my legs and it is not steady. I have made great progress, and I can feel a growing awareness of who I am and where I am. And with that awareness the bubble of a memory coming to the surface from deep inside the void to explain the circumstances leading up to this moment. The sensation is like a theatre curtain raising to reveal the stage, or the fade in at the beginning of the movie. But then, a part of me that is not me says, No, you don't want to remember that. And the bubble descends and the curtain lowers, never to be raised again on that memory. But other sensations are growing. There is something like vision briefly, but the pictures are badly out of focus and don't make much sense, so it seems best to keep my eyes closed. Or maybe it's more like turning my eyes off. Suddenly the missing leg is back or at least there is a thing where it ought to be. But it isn't a leg. It is a pain that swells to become the whole world while at the same time shrinking to a point and then simply disappearing, taking me with it back into the void.
This time the transition from nothingness to a sort of reality is much quicker, and much of the progress I made last time is still there. The pain, for one thing. I scream profanities as loudly as I can, and I can clearly hear myself do so, though I don't seem to be moving anything to accomplish this. Surely my mouth should be moving? Also, my perspective seems to have changed, and I feel road supporting me so I must be laying down. Where is the person who was nearby, so very far away? But I don't think I would benefit from being held anyway. The thing that was my leg would never support me now, and thinking about that brings back the void.
There is a sound that makes sense; it is an ambulance. The shapes around me are pulsing red and not-red, on and off. There is some kind of discussion going on around me. Someone who seems to be in charge says something to me and then I am being moved but then everything becomes blank.
We are driving; very fast it would seem, though I'm not sure why I think this. Then we are slowing down till we are barely moving and then the familiar thump-thump of railroad tracks except this time they are not thumps but jolts of pain which jolt me back into the void.
We are somewhere and there are two people around me who are talking about something and laughing. Shop talk. Shut up and have some respect I scream at them but nothing of mine actually moves so the scream exists only in my head. I can hear everything they say and some of it makes sense and some of that I can remember for a time but I can't move anything or see anything and mostly I can't feel anything but my leg. Then one of the people says he's going to put an inflatable cast on me and I may feel a pinch and the world becomes pain and then nothing.
I am in a hallway on a gurney, judging by how high off the floor I seem to be. People come by from time to time and shine a light in my eyes. I must be able to see, although the movie is out of focus and I'm not following it at all. Someone asks me what hurts. A very complicated question with no easy answer. I search for words that sound like body parts and come up with "clavicle". I don't know what a clavicle is but I think it's a body part. "Clavicle" I say, very proudly. "I think he said Clavicle " comes the response. Followed by "Mr. Speare, there is nothing wrong with your clavicle, but you have been in a serious motorcycle accident and you have a very badly broken leg. You also have some skin abrasions." There is more but it doesn't seem important so I stare into the void instead, although this time the void is more like fading to warm earth tones, a big improvement over turning blank.
I'm in a room. Therefore it is my room. A woman is at the foot of my bed doing something. That must be why I can't see my aquarium. I ask her to move so I can see my aquarium. She does move, but only to come over and shine a light in my eyes. How rude. And then there's another person suddenly and he too is shining a light in my eyes. It seems to be night and I am in my room and I am trying to sleep but all night long people come in and shine a light in my eyes. How are you supposed to sleep with this going on?
And then it is morning. You can tell because there's a general bustle and no one is shining lights in people's eyes. They do come around frequently and ask how I'm feeling though; I feel kind of foggy. There are some things that happen; some kind of tests I expect. Some of them hurt quite a lot, but in a numb kind of way. I think I get an X-ray but I can't be sure. Life is fairly pleasant, all things considered. Then a very important person comes in and says he's going to put my leg back together and I'd be good as new. That sounds good.
I have a rig of some sort on my leg. It's a fairly impressive thing but it's starting to itch. I still can't move much but I don't have anywhere I need to be anyway. My parents come to visit. That's nice. Even nicer are the nurses and the candy stripers. The latter supply magazines and candies (of course) both of which break up the monotony which is starting to be a part of life. Time for an inventory. I have the rig on my left leg. Any attempts to feel how things are going in that leg get a bad result so on to the next. The right leg seems fine and things can wiggle and move like they are supposed to. Arms seem fine although there are bandages here and there and tubes and stuff. Torso seems mostly ok although a fairly large dressing covering something or other. Head seems a little groggy still and again a dressing, probably covering a scuff mark. This corroborates what people are telling me; a multiple compound fracture crush of the left leg, multiple skin abrasions road rash and a concussion. A pretty good one I'm guessing, although no one offers an opinion on that. More visitors, but still family. The food's actually not bad here, and then the night shift comes in so it's time for sleep. Hopefully there is no flashlight patrol tonight.
A good night all around, although it's hard to sleep all night when you're never quite awake all day. The world is starting to take on a tangible quality; this quality is itself intangible. That's funny. Because it's funny there must be more going on in my head. That's good. A girl screams down the hall.
I remember I was at ground school. We were taking navigation and I didn't believe I would ever figure out the workings of that damn slide rule thing with the bit that turned. Something about wind. It was a beautiful spring evening and the instructor had some place to be so we all decided to leave a bit early. Must have been around nine o'clock. Still plenty of light outside and a very fine evening to putter home on the Suzuki, although a 90 cc bike never putters; it's like driving an angry bee. I was most of the way home when I was flagged down by two neighbour girls, wanting a ride on the motorcycle of course. I would really rather have gone home, because I had a bunch of friends coming over. When you're the kid with the pool on a hot night you have a lot of friends. But when you're 16 and two girls are wanting you for something you're pretty much available. OK I said, but just a short ride as I'd had a long day and it's looking to be a long night. A quick mental flip of the coin and I went home to get the extra helmet instead of not giving one to the girls; definitely the highest stakes coin toss of my life. The first ride was uneventful, although it's always nice to have a girl hanging on to you because they have to. It was the second girl that I was sort of interested in which is too bad, because that ride is where the details get sketchy. I remember bits of that ride, but unfortunately the bits are contradictory and could not all have actually happened. One thing I do remember is that it was firmly dusk during that ride.
A few miles away there is, or was, an old gravel pit complex that had been mined out and then left to the fates, the fates being the rising ground water. It was a very popular spot on nice spring and summer evenings because it was essentially a large square pond, and if you weren't overly concerned with water quality it was a terrific place to splash around, drink some beer and generally have a good time. Apparently there was a group of young people doing just that this particular evening, although the beer part is conjecture. At around dusk it's time to leave "the pits" as there is no lighting, so this group of people in a pickup truck found themselves driving home along the same stretch of highway and at the same time as me, giving motorcycle rides to two neighbourhood girls. There was a collision as they attempted to pass me while I was simultaneously drifting to the left, probably to drop off the neighbour girl where I had picked her up.
And it is her, of course, who is screaming down the hall. I struggle to come up with an appropriate emotion. This is new ground.
The next day is surgery day. It starts with someone, a male nurse perhaps, coming in to "prep" me. Prepping seems to involve mostly a really careful shave downstairs for some reason. Careful as he is though, there is an inconsequential nick which bleeds the tiniest amount, and which causes the largest uproar when the surgeon sees it. I think surgeons are just naturally bad tempered. There is the usual pep talk by people trying to reassure me; I am just intrigued by the process and am not really thinking about consequences. And there's nothing like a little shot of morphine to get you going in the morning. After a gurney ride which makes me very happy for some reason it is into a surgery room which is absolutely fascinating. Someone does something and then tells me to count backwards from 10. I make it to 7.
I am assuming there has been a lapse of time. A lapse of something certainly; I have never felt quite this odd. There is a different sort of pain in my leg now; not necessarily better or worse, just different and that makes it hard to ignore for a while. The surgeon comes in and tells me everything went very well; he sees no reason why I won't be able to live a normal life after this. He clearly doesn't know me. But there are some issues due to the fact that my leg is still growing and we'll talk about that later. My parents pop in briefly and they're all smiles and everything seems wonderful but then a nurse shoos them out and does nurse stuff.
After a while I get taken to a different room with two beds in it and two sick people counting me. There are cards and stuff. A flower of some description but I'm not big on flowers. A box of toffees and I am big on those. A bell you can ring and get room service. Mostly tea for a while. I get a visitor but it turns out to be a cop. He wants to know all about the accident. I tell him what I know, which is very little and as it turns out I can remember in detail two different routes I took giving that last bike ride. Only one of those memories can be real, but I tell him both anyway. He says he's going to charge me with criminal negligence and asks me what I think of that. I ask him what the fine is and he says seventy-five dollars so I say I'm good with that. Of course my mother is livid when she hears, firstly that a cop would interview someone "in my condition" and also that I admitted anything when there may be long term consequences. At this point, consequences, long term or otherwise, are something I'm trying to get my 16 year old head around but with little luck.
The next day everything seems to be more or less in focus for the first time in a while. In addition to family visiting I also get a selection of friends. Much as you love your family you are really glad to get friends visiting when you're a teenager in hospital. Friends don't sugar coat anything; they laugh at you with you when you say things that don't make sense or don't remember things that just happened. That's an important reality check. One of the friends who visits is the kid from down the road. He leaves the room for a moment and then comes back in a wheelchair with his arm in a contraption. He says he's in the hospital now too and this makes perfect sense; I can see him, clearly he's in the hospital. When I tell him this he looks confused, and then says that he rode his bicycle over to see me in the morning and got hit by a car on the way home. Not much damage other than his elbow which went through the windshield. So now it is much later and he is in the hospital too. Makes sense I suppose.
Days and nights turn into more days and nights. There are visits from family, and friends, and then extended family. This is a little awkward because the extended family are all by and large extremely religious whereas I tend to take all things in moderation. One of them gives me a complete box set of The Chronicles of Narnia though and that is most welcome to someone in the hospital for an extended period. "There's a special message in it for you." is the veiled threat as she leaves the room. But my head is too rubbery to understand special messages.
And then the most amazing thing happens. A cute nurse comes in and says they have to make sure I don't get bed sores. So she gives me a head to toe towel wash. She says she'll be back every day. I'll be here, I respond. And I really mean it.
In the basement of the hospital there is a giant bathtub with a hoist for getting people like me into it. It's shaped like a big stainless steel snow angel. It fills up really quickly, there must be a really big faucet somewhere but it's not obvious. Anyhow, once filled the pleasant but obviously tough Swedish lady running it squirts in what looks like a lot of iodine and then hoists me up and then down into the tub. I am told to move my leg. Any direction, any amount, just move my leg. Hurts like blazes.
The bathtub test must have gone well because the next day I get a visit from the physio woman. She is no lady. She very carefully, gingerly in fact, has me sit up and swing my legs over the edge of the bed, all the while supporting my bad leg so that it doesn't hurt at all. Then she lets go. It feels like it has broken again. But it bends almost the whole way that a leg should bend under those circumstances and I think that is the objective. I scream and tell her I will never trust her again but I don't believe that is important to her. She comes again over the next few days. I have many exercises I have to do. One day she comes with some crutches. This is to be a big day: a walk sort of. With some assistance I stand up for the first time in a week? two weeks? It's hard to track time in a place such as this. Anyhow, it's great. And then it's not. My vision constricts to a pinpoint and I can feel myself toppling over. But then suddenly I'm back in bed and there are two nurses who apparently were beside me when I attempted standing up and I guess they caught me. We'll try again tomorrow.
The next day goes much better and I make it all the way down to the kitchenette where I make myself some tea. I'm encouraged to do little trips on my own but not to overdo it. The doctors are starting to make fewer appearances. No one seems concerned with my head any more and all of my gouges seem to be getting better. There is one more visit from the surgeon, who says everything is going well but we have to get the pin out of my leg within a year because my leg is still growing. See you in a year. The physio woman, who has now become a lady, says there is one more hurdle before I can go home, and that is to learn how to do stairs on crutches. It turns out that is a very hard skill to master but I must have succeeded because here I am being discharged after two weeks out of my life.
So life goes on as it has; largely consequence free.