I watched the road speed by out the window, as the street lights and the trees behind them followed. Other cars sped by, towards and away from the bus I rode, the sun reflecting off their windows and mirrors.
It was at that point that I began feeling a small, subtle dull ache in my right leg. It started at the shin, and seemed to spread itself lightly downwards into my foot, and crept up to my knee.
I ignored it, allowing the music that was pouring from my headphones to invade my thoughts and clear everything out.
Yet the ache persisted. So I turned up the volume.
The bus continued on, humming and bumping on the uneven road.
With every bump, it felt like the ache fought for attention in my head. The music would be drowned out by the song from my nerves.
I continued to ignore it, until the music was no longer louder than the pain.
My knuckles gripped hard on my jeans, and I saw my knuckles go white. Sweat beaded on my forehead and my teeth clenched.
It felt like my bones were grinding against my muscles, like some invisible hands of some demon clutching and twisting and pulling on my femur.
The bus hit another bump, and I let out a cry of pain.
The passengers began to look around, wondering what was happening.
I had to inform the driver, I had to get him to stop, I had to go to the hospital. Something was not right.
I put my hand on the railing above to pull myself up, and as I began to stand upright, my nerves ceased singing and began SCREAMING their damned hymn.
Again I cried out in pain and fell back into my seat.
Fear gripped me as I felt the pounding anguish crawl into my hips. I tried to get up again, to shout for help, but instead fell over onto the floor. People who were standing near immediately moved away. The pain rose slowly up my spine and down through my other leg.
I groaned as the agony continued, still holding my right leg, where it hurt the worst.
I lifted my head from the floor, looking at my leg, and I saw my leg twist and break in different places. Bone jutted out and blood seeped and oozed, with little bits of tissue flapping and dangling out from any crevice they found in my newly opened leg.
Others around me screamed and yelled, but I couldn't hear them. My own screaming drowned them out.
I felt my hip bones collapse and crush, as if my weight was too much for them to bear. Inescapable pain sank it's fangs into my mind, driving me to madness.
My back began to spasm, thrashing wildly, until I felt my torso flip over with a sickening crunch, twisting the wind out of me. I stopped screaming. Even if I felt like I could breathe, the blood coating my throat was too thick. I lifted my face from the floor as far as I could, and dizzied at the sight I could see of the corner of my eye. My rear was still to the floor, my knees pointing upwards to the ceiling. Yet here my face was, pressed against the bottom, surrounded by shoes and legs.
The last thing I saw, before my skull began to creak, was a man holding his own hand where my blood had splattered onto, holding and rubbing, as if his hand hurt.
As if it ached.
My jaw flew open and twisted sideways, breaking at at least two points. My skull split open and my face sank in, and finally all the music stopped.
I wonder if my coroner will write it off as bad arthritis.
Friday, April 24, 2009
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