Berberis' World

The impact sent her reeling. One moment, she stood calmly waiting for her bus, the next she was hurtling through the crisp December air at 40 miles per hour, towards her destination: the newly laid red brick pavement. What blood there was – surprisingly little, considering the extensive injuries she was found to have suffered – blended into the rough crimson blocks, seeping slowly from the cut at her left temple. Witnesses reported that, for all the violence of the crash, she had not made a sound the entire time. She never said another word again.

In hospital, she lay unmoving as they cut off her clothes and exposed her bruised and battered body. She always took great pains to keep her skin soft; sensitivity to sunlight made it impossible for her to wear the latest fashions, the midriff baring tops, the hip-skimming min skirts and low rise jeans. Not for her were the strappy tops and the gauzy blouses which would float against her skin were she able to wear them. She adopted the style of a Goth, wearing dark, sensuous fabrics, silks and velvets, swirling around her ankles, draped around her shoulders and swathing her thighs. However, instead of the blacks and deep indigos worn by Goths, she would wear crimson and purple velvet, moss green and sea blue silks.

Such opulent fabrics were meant to be peeled from a body, slowly, like you might peel a ripe banana, or a sweet orange, slowly, revealing the delights inside. They were not meant to be ripped and tom, rent asunder by frantic hands, discarded as so much useless wrapping on a gore splattered floor. Not meant to be trodden on, like a child steps on the paper in which its birthday presents have been lovingly wrapped, stamping on bows and folds, heedless of the damage. Velvet was to be caressed, not crushed, not torn. Never torn.

Having unwrapped her, they manipulated her, tested for any response, attached and inserted tubes, applied tapes and gauze and strapping and pronounced her alive, but critical. Under the watchful eyes of half a dozen machines, she lay in the bed, her body broken and bloodied… only the smallest fraction of her mind keeping her in the world. The soft bleeping of the machines, the swoosh of the ventilator as it inflated her lungs, sending oxygen into her blood, penetrated this quiet corner. As though from nowhere, she stood by the bed, looking down at herself.

“That was quite a ride,” she said to herself, touching a fingertip to the livid bruise which haloed her left eye. “Matches your skirt.” She looked at the length of material which hung on the trolley at the other side of the room. “What’s left of it. Still, when it’s a choice between velvet and living , I think I’d choose living.”

The ventilator stuttered then swooshed. A dark haired doctor pushed through the doors and stepped to the side of the bed. He scratched his head as he cast tired eyes over her chart, seeing how her blood pressure had begin nearly non existent but was now climbing, how her pulse, thin and thready when they laid her on the table, was now steady, if weak. He made some notes in handwriting only legible to other doctors, lifted her eyelids and waved a small torch in front of unresponsive eyes, making some more notes. He clattered the chart onto the end of the bed and left the room.

“He’ll be back in a while. Every five or ten minutes, someone comes in, has a look, scribbles something, goes away. He’s been in twice. There’s a shift change in a while. It’ll be someone else then. He’s nice though, sweet. Good looking in a plain kind of way… you know, all his features are ordinary but put them together and they make a prettier picture than you might expect.”

*

Twenty four hours passed. Still the machines beeped and swooshed and someone would come in and scribble and then leave. The body on the bed was still unmoving, presenting a picture of calm… only slightly disordered order in the cuts and bruises. Inside, all was chaos. White corpuscles raced through her system, patching up, even as their scarlet counterparts sought to ease themselves from between the torn edges of her once velvet soft skin. Her heart, shocked back into life once, twice, three times, fought to keep the blood flowing, but it too was bruised. The valiant effort it was making to keep her in the world was weakening it. Even as she appeared to be rallying, even as the machines told of her winning the battle to remain alive, her heart was tiring.

“He should have been here a while ago,” the figure beside the bed told her sleeping double. “His shift started at eight.” She walked around the bed, back again, and around and back, her stockinged feet sliding on the tiled floor. “Where is he?”

As though on cue, the doors opened. A light haired woman in green entered. She frowned as she looked at the chart, rubbed her nose as she studied the machines, scratched her neck and then pressed a button. Within moments, another woman joined her, leaning over the bed, pressing and prodding and kneading and checking and comparing and contrasting and looking and examining. Within minutes, the figure in the bed was being wheeled out of the room, the portable machines now hung from hooks on the bed, tubes and wires draping across her legs.

*

The dark haired doctor peered around the door.

“Where have you been?” she asked him angrily. “You should have been here hours ago. They had to take her away. The machines were going crazy.”

He disappeared.

*

The chaos was subsiding now. Her heart was no longer racing, struggling to pump the blood around her battered limbs, through her vital organs. Her breathing was no longer ragged and forced. Her brain was no longer struggling to make sense of the blackness into which it had been plunged, even as she had flown through the crisp December air. She lay unmoving, still, on the bed, the tubes and wires removed, the machines now silent, their screens dark.

The figure at the side of the bed sighed, touched a gentle fingertip to the bruise which haloed her left eye. “He came to say goodbye, I think,” she whispered, and then all in the room was calm.