Go hard or go...to the hospital? Right? Is that how the expression goes?
Sitting in my hospital bed, typing with one hand while the other stands perfectly upright swathed in thick sheaths of plaster, cotton, and stretchy canvas-colored fabric, I'm not sure why I wasn't able to use the smarter half of my brain this past Halloween night. Go hard or go HOME. Go hard AND go home. Just don't go hard and try and squash three people on the back of a motorbike.
But that's what we did, my boyfriend and I. I'd like to blame him for it - really I would - but the problem is that I'm also an idiot and when we drink our separate stupidities compound and combine. We've gotten lucky in the past - been more responsible and less moronic - but Halloween cast a spell over both of us, and despite the fact that my second day strapped to this prison-bed is easing into my third, I still can't deny that it was one hell of a night.
We danced, we took shots off of skis, we bartered with the Gambians down in Geneva's infamous Paquis, we smoked, we boozed, we ran, we screamed, and then in the wee hours of the morning after we'd left all of our friends or they'd left us, my boyfriend and I found ourselves in an unfamiliar neighborhood with no working metro, and no taxis. So we got on the back of sone random kid's motorcycle and asked for a lift that he was reluctant to give and I was reluctant to take. We sped through the night on that rickety two-wheeled wagon and more than half a dozen times I anticipated us crashing, which is why I'm still surprised at how shocked I was when we did.
In moments of crisis and brutality, I've heard that time slows or that people see whit light or memories flare up in living color behind closed lids. I experienced none of this. I saw only the parked car we were aimed at, felt the wind on my face, and the sudden lurch of my stomach as it made a Kamikaze leap into my chest. The sounds came next. So loud - impossibly so. I was lying on my back on the ground and could feel a tightening of my chest as I fought to breathe. I heard Ferdinand moaning into the concrete and could see bits if blood and motorcycle debris scattered all around me. I sat up quickly and saw him on the ground while I distantly registered our driver picking up the remnants of his bike and driving off, fragments if red plastic fluttering in his wake. I shouted to no one for an ambulance and remember how, when Ferdinand sat up - alive - the weight in my chest became relief.
I don't recall when the women in the road found us, but it must have been minutes or seconds, maybe. I do remember the one woman, Myriam. I cannot see her face, but I can hear her still sweetly whispering my name in the softest, most comforting voice I'd ever heard and likely ever will. She was the one to convince both Ferdinand and me to lie down, to calm down - I didn't - and to breathe deeply. The women stayed with us, comforting us as a mother would her children until the ambulance came in a blaze of red and blue and sirens screaming.
And then came the pain. It's amazing what shock and adrenaline can do to the human body - what they can repress. I had shattered most if the bones in my left hand and still could not feel it for the better part of half an hour. We made it to the hospital. I had surgery, Ferdinand had a Deliverance-esque smile and a mouthful of missing teeth.
I'm still here waiting for release as I eat a plate full of something orange, hoping that this scenario will eventually be funny. Even the fact that we were found on the side of the road dressed as a clown and a zebra was made less funny when I saw how shredded the oversized blue shoes were the next morning. It could have been worse than broken bones and teeth. A lot worse.
And in thinking about how much worse it might have been I must acknowledge that this has been my longest, most terrifying dream. And one year from now, one month from, now - next weekend - I will make a different choice. I will choose home next Halloween.
Sitting in my hospital bed, typing with one hand while the other stands perfectly upright swathed in thick sheaths of plaster, cotton, and stretchy canvas-colored fabric, I'm not sure why I wasn't able to use the smarter half of my brain this past Halloween night. Go hard or go HOME. Go hard AND go home. Just don't go hard and try and squash three people on the back of a motorbike.
But that's what we did, my boyfriend and I. I'd like to blame him for it - really I would - but the problem is that I'm also an idiot and when we drink our separate stupidities compound and combine. We've gotten lucky in the past - been more responsible and less moronic - but Halloween cast a spell over both of us, and despite the fact that my second day strapped to this prison-bed is easing into my third, I still can't deny that it was one hell of a night.
We danced, we took shots off of skis, we bartered with the Gambians down in Geneva's infamous Paquis, we smoked, we boozed, we ran, we screamed, and then in the wee hours of the morning after we'd left all of our friends or they'd left us, my boyfriend and I found ourselves in an unfamiliar neighborhood with no working metro, and no taxis. So we got on the back of sone random kid's motorcycle and asked for a lift that he was reluctant to give and I was reluctant to take. We sped through the night on that rickety two-wheeled wagon and more than half a dozen times I anticipated us crashing, which is why I'm still surprised at how shocked I was when we did.
In moments of crisis and brutality, I've heard that time slows or that people see whit light or memories flare up in living color behind closed lids. I experienced none of this. I saw only the parked car we were aimed at, felt the wind on my face, and the sudden lurch of my stomach as it made a Kamikaze leap into my chest. The sounds came next. So loud - impossibly so. I was lying on my back on the ground and could feel a tightening of my chest as I fought to breathe. I heard Ferdinand moaning into the concrete and could see bits if blood and motorcycle debris scattered all around me. I sat up quickly and saw him on the ground while I distantly registered our driver picking up the remnants of his bike and driving off, fragments if red plastic fluttering in his wake. I shouted to no one for an ambulance and remember how, when Ferdinand sat up - alive - the weight in my chest became relief.
I don't recall when the women in the road found us, but it must have been minutes or seconds, maybe. I do remember the one woman, Myriam. I cannot see her face, but I can hear her still sweetly whispering my name in the softest, most comforting voice I'd ever heard and likely ever will. She was the one to convince both Ferdinand and me to lie down, to calm down - I didn't - and to breathe deeply. The women stayed with us, comforting us as a mother would her children until the ambulance came in a blaze of red and blue and sirens screaming.
And then came the pain. It's amazing what shock and adrenaline can do to the human body - what they can repress. I had shattered most if the bones in my left hand and still could not feel it for the better part of half an hour. We made it to the hospital. I had surgery, Ferdinand had a Deliverance-esque smile and a mouthful of missing teeth.
I'm still here waiting for release as I eat a plate full of something orange, hoping that this scenario will eventually be funny. Even the fact that we were found on the side of the road dressed as a clown and a zebra was made less funny when I saw how shredded the oversized blue shoes were the next morning. It could have been worse than broken bones and teeth. A lot worse.
And in thinking about how much worse it might have been I must acknowledge that this has been my longest, most terrifying dream. And one year from now, one month from, now - next weekend - I will make a different choice. I will choose home next Halloween.
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