He awoke in an emergency room bed and stares at a clock that reads 2pm and cannot account for the past five hours. His mind a blurry collection of disjointed photographs: his contorted motorcycle bleeding on the road, his clothes being cut off and his lifeless body being loaded into an ambulance and finally his present location. A nurse walking by in a black sweater triggers an image of a black Chrysler 300, that pulled out in front of him and then his mind goes blank.
He remembers someone making a left turn in front of him against a red light. The accident fills him with rage, so he trashes about the bed, tugging on fresh stitches and sore muscles to the soundtrack of a crying burn victim one bay over until falling back into a Demerol induced sleep. Even in his dreams the incident was unavoidable.
Cars flank his peripheral vision as he pulls into the intersection where the broadside of a black Chrysler looms eight-feet in front of him. Other then the cars flanking me starting to brake, there was nothing to suggest an obstruction in his lane. Heading straight for the driver's window, he counter steered left hoping to maneuver around the vehicle. He missed the window and hit the front wheel, catapulting him into the air.
He doesn't remembered trying to catch his fall only the pain from his left hand. He looked back, his motorcycle idling on the boulevard, contorted forks bleeding on pavement. He removes his helmet and begins yelling at anyone who will listen, as if annoyance proved he was alive. Adrenaline overpowered the pain and the ambulance; both of which had yet to arrive. The police report states he spoke with a police officer and by spoke he kept asking the same questions over and over again. When the paramedics arrived they cut off all the clothes and loaded him naked into an ambulance.
Black, then he awoke in the hospital where a woman asked about his next of kin. He gave her the only number he knew by heart-his grandfather's. His sister calls and asks how he's doing. 'Google austinworks,' he said. 'Speak with rob and tell him I won't be in today.' He started work at 10am and was never late. He thanked her before hanging up. His grandparent walked into his curtained-off room and he read 2.30pm on the clock. An hour later his mother arrived.
A doctor explained he concussion but tests revealed nothing was broke and he would stop peeing blood by tomorrow. He was released at 9.30pm to the care of his mother but he had had no clothes to wear. A nurse lets him rummage through some clothes that were meant for charity. He limps out of the emergency room cradling a Mason jar of Vicodin, a bedpan and a longing to know what happened between 9-2.
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