So tonight I wash dishes because our dishwasher’s broken, and I’m a good little doobie and I clean up afterward, and I carry the dirty strainer to the trashcan to bang it clean. Only, being me, I’ve left a cabinet door open, and when I bend to bang the strainer I gack my head doubleplus good on a corner of the cabinet door.
You know those moments where you really hurt yourself? I’m not talking stubbing your toe and imitating Fred Flintstone for all the neighborhood to hear. I mean when you really seriously Fuck Shit Up. Things get quiet for a second. You have a moment of astonishing clarity in which the Times Square Scroller in your brain parades bright lights that say Wow You Just Fucked Shit Up. Yessir. I made a little owie noise and went down to my knees and grabbed my head and felt warmth on my hand and took a look. Oh yeah. Scalps are heavily vascular and bleeding often seems worse than the injury really is. I know this. I apply pressure and say, “Maureen. Can you come here? I’ve hurt myself.” I say this really calmly while I watch blood rain down on the kitchen floor.
One thing about large quantities of real blood, it looks really fake.
Mo comes in and takes a look and rolls her eyes and says, “Hold on.” I hold on. Literally. She comes back with a compress and takes a look and swabs and compresses. When we’re sure we’ve got it contained enough that I won’t go bleeding all over the carpet we go to the bathroom and she fills a hypo with something I’m sure an average citizen can’t get hold of and she irrigates the wound and swabs it and appliess a fresh gauze pad and bandages it. I look like a gunshot victim. “Don’t scratch it,” my wife says. “I’m going back to bed.”
Half an hour later she comes into my office for a status check. “Feeling disconnected?” she asks. “Tingly fingers? Dizzy?” That’s right for a thousand, Alex.
What does all this have to do with writing? Well, I’ll get to it. I promise.
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